


to leave this all behind (halo round his head)

by grumpyhedgehogs



Category: A Crown of Candy - Fandom, Dimension 20 (Web Series)
Genre: Afterlife, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Anger, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Animal Abuse, Arguing, Blood and Injury, Blood and Violence, Bombs, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Character Development, Child Soldiers, DnD Magic Systems, Dysfunctional Family, Family Dynamics, Fictional Religion & Theology, Fire, Found Family, Friendship, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Heavy Angst, Holding Hands, Hurt/Comfort, Impaired Movement, Imprisonment, Injury, Insomnia, Lapin Lives AU, Lies, Magic, Manipulation, Mentors, Older Characters, Physical Abuse, Physical Transformation, References to Depression, Religious Conflict, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Rescue, Resentment, Resurrection, Royalty, Scars, Self-Sacrifice, Spirits, Succession Issues, Team as Family, Temporary Character Death, Trauma, Violence, War, original lore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:28:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 47,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28167762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grumpyhedgehogs/pseuds/grumpyhedgehogs
Summary: Lapin blinks slowly at Brassica as she steps up to the bars of his cell, the guards splitting around her like so much water over a stone. He inclines his head, trying for regal and probably failing.“Heretic.” Her voice grates against his eardrums. “You have awakened.”“Zealot. You haven’t killed me.” Lapin replies, dry.
Relationships: Jet Rocks & Ruby Rocks, Lapin Cadbury & Amethar Rocks, Lapin Cadbury & Everyone, Lapin Cadbury & Jet Rocks, Lapin Cadbury & Keradin Deeproot, Lapin Cadbury & Liam Wilhelmina Jawbreaker, Lapin Cadbury & Peppermint Preston, Lapin Cadbury & Rocks Family, Lapin Cadbury & Ruby Rocks, Lapin Cadbury & Saccharina Frostwhip, Lapin Cadbury & The Sugar Plum Fairy, Lapin Cadbury & Theobald Gumbar, Liam Wilhelmina Jawbreaker & Jet Rocks & Ruby Rocks, Liam Wilhelmina Jawbreaker & Peppermint Preston, Liam Wilhelmina Jawbreaker & Ruby Rocks, Primsy Coldbottle/Liam Wilhelmina Jawbreaker, Saccharina Frostwhip & Ruby Rocks
Comments: 6
Kudos: 52
Collections: Dimension 20 Big Bang





	to leave this all behind (halo round his head)

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is written for the Dimension 20 Big Bang of 2020. The art included is by my Big Bang partner, kindlespark (https://kindlespark.tumblr.com/ and https://twitter.com/kindlestuck). They have fantastic acoc art and are an overall lovely person. They also have full-sized versions of the art included in this fic. 
> 
> Title is from Sacrilege by Yeah Yeah Yeahs.
> 
> Special thanks to a very good friend, who let me bounce ideas off of her for months and helped me through the editing process.

“The Bulb cares for no one.”

Lapin bares his teeth, feels the blood on his incisors and seeping into his robes, sticky and cloying. His shoulder and side are on fire, pain lancing its way from his spine to the base of his skull; he can barely move, barely see through the red haze over his eyes. But he meets the Pontifex’s gaze as best he can. Preston squeals from where he has hurled himself into Lapin’s robes. Against his skin Lapin can feel the jagged edges of one of the pig’s ears, which had shattered when Sir Keradin’s mace just grazed him. Lapin curls in on himself even more, determination to protect still coursing through his veins. Peppermint Preston has always been safe with him and Lapin will not let that change until he no longer resides on this mortal coil.

Keradin’s mace is covered in chocolate and blood, hanging over his head like a death sentence. 

  
  


“End--” she begins, but Lapin is not done. He can see the others out of the corner of his eye, though his vision is wavering now. King Amethar hesitates in the window, looking back. His King looks at him and Lapin snarls.

“The Bulb is _nothing_.” He hisses. It would not do for the Pontifex and Keradin to refocus on the party until they escape safely. Lapin will not allow it. “The Bulb feels nothing and knows nothing, and it does not love you. You worship and praise and grovel at an altar you have built entirely in vain. When you die, as you have sentenced me to die, you will understand that your lives and the lives you have stolen in the name of the Bulb have been nothing more than a waste.”

Sir Keradin’s eyes are alight with a fire that is usually absent, and he raises the mace over his shoulder. The Pontifex is transfixed, leaning close. She wants the last word, desperate to lord herself over him. Lapin’s gut twists, pain and fear and anger sickening him. In this moment, the Pontifex’s face replaces itself with that of the Sugar Plum Fairy and Lapin knows exactly what he wishes to do as he coughs, choking on the blood coating his throat.

Lapin spits in her face. 

“I pity you, you miserable little castoff of an utterly hollow God.” He hisses, just as the flash of color that is his King disappears from sight. Finally. He stayed too long, the fool. “I would rather _rot_ than believe in the Bulb as you do.”

Lapin has hung on too long now, and he knows it. He’s losing sensation in his paws. Sound warps in his ears, as if he is at the bottom of a very deep well. His vision blurs even further.

Sir Keradin lets out a noise that sounds like a cross between a hiss and a growl and surges forward. The last thing Lapin can see is a blur of green bracing across the paladin’s chest before he loses consciousness. 

~

When he wakes up, Lapin is not dead. 

“Well. Shit.”

He’s back in the same dungeon they kept Sir Keradin in--he may even be in the same cell. They’ve neglected to do more than throw him in and lock the door, it looks like. He’s slumped in a heap on the floor, the manacles he’d tricked the paladin with hanging uselessly against the far wall. As he shifts, his consciousness coming slowly back to him, he quickly understands why. His whole side is almost concave. Pain ripples through him and he gasps sharply, stilling. He can’t afford to move much more, instead simply fighting the natural instinct to curl into a ball. It will only end up harming him further.

Lapin drifts for a time; he can hear guards change outside his cell, feels the draft as the winds outside the walls pick up in the night. The cold seeps into his clothes, growing as time passes, but it is easy to ignore. He shrouds himself in the fog his brain conjures and breathes shallowly. His own blood renders him half-blind, but it does not matter.

Here in this limbo, little matters.

Until a panicked little wuffle catches his attention. At first Lapin thinks he may have imagined it, half-conscious as he is; a mere figment of his dying imagination, some comfort he tries to offer himself. Then a wet snout pushes at his shoulder and Lapin jerks to with a gasp. He tries to jack-knife instinctively, his reason catching up only seconds too late. His bones shift and all his strength drains from him. Lapin lands hard on his elbow and hip and lies there, trying to remember how to breathe.

Peppermint Preston peeks between Lapin’s long ears at him. Lapin glares at the pig’s upside-down, concerned face and sucks in air between his teeth. “Fancy meeting you here,” he groans.

Preston _oinks_ and pushes at his cheek gently. Lapin’s eyes slip closed again, the faint wonder of why Preston has been left alive pushed to the back of his mind. The fog crowds in again.

Sometime later, although Lapin has no way of knowing if it is seconds or days, Preston presses insistently at his uninjured shoulder, squealing harshly before slipping away, digging further into the shadowy corners of the cell. 

Lapin struggles to understand, pain flooding his senses. Then footsteps register above the pounding of his heart in his ears and Lapin has just enough time to haul himself up, ignoring the way his limbs scream in protest, before he is face to face with the Pontifex. 

Lapin blinks slowly at Brassica as she steps up to the bars of his cell, the guards splitting around her like so much water over a stone. He inclines his head, trying for regal and probably failing.

“Heretic.” Her voice grates against his eardrums. “You have awakened.”

“Zealot. You haven’t killed me.” Lapin replies, dry.

Sir Keradin, who looms at her shoulder, growls lowly. 

“Careful,” Lapin teases through the blinding twinge in his ribs, “or you may have to leash your paladin, Pontifex. He seems rather feral.”

“Sir Keradin does not take lightly to an apostate having ensconced himself in our midst.” The Pontifex explains, sounding utterly bored. Her eyes are sharp and stinging as silverpoint venom. “Nor should he. The Church of the Bulb has been sullied by your presence for too long, Lapin Cadbury. You are hereby stripped of your title of Chancellor and branded a heretic. You and your country of Candia are no longer part of the Empire. In weeks’ time, we shall war.”

It is the next natural progression after Amethar revealed his adultery under duress and Plumbeline made a snatch for the Emperor’s throne, Lapin knows. But the anxiety and panic rise in him anyway and only years of hiding stop him from losing his breath. War. _War_. And so many against so few. Candia is doomed.

Why is she telling him this? Why not let Keradin kill him in the church and have done with it as she originally planned? She was the one to put out a hand to stop his death, Lapin knows it. But why?

_I was the only one left_ , Lapin realizes, and grits his teeth. 

“I suppose you have a plan here?” He asks, ignoring how his voice wants to shake. Thankfully he has always been very good at sounding unconcerned with his own welfare. “Some great, Bulbian attempt to change my heathen ways, perhaps? Or is it simpler than that? Would you like my death to be more of a public message? A warning to my King?”

Something in his chest twists horribly at his own words but Lapin clamps down on the worry and pushes past it. He was dead when he accepted the deal with the Sugar Plum Fairy all those years ago. Feeling this way about his own cold-blooded murder is simply superfluous. 

He still has to swallow against the rising bile.

The Pontifex’s face twists, but only for a moment. Then her green skin smooths out, as if the wrinkles of disgust and hate were never there in the first place. At her back, Sir Keradin shifts on his feet. Those empty eyes never leave Lapin’s face.

Lapin wishes for his staff.

“You shall see,” the Pontifex promises, “exactly what the Bulb is capable of, Lapin. In time.”

Lapin manages to wait until she has swept from the room with her paladin at her heels, before he crumples. His knees are numb when they hit the ground, which is probably for the best. His lungs burn and he can feel the way his ribs on his left side ache and stretch against his flesh; he’ll be lucky if they aren’t broken.

Preston nudges up under his arm and Lapin lifts it obligingly. He winces, unable to raise his elbow more than mid-height as the bones in his shoulder shift against each other with a sick crunching sound. Preston squeals quietly and presses his snout to Lapin’s ribs.

Letting out all the air in his lungs in a single huff, Lapin eases the hot pain throbbing down his arm by resting his paw on Preston’s back. The little pig squeals again, turns around twice, and curls into a ball in the pocket of Lapin’s robes he has just made. Like this, they are both more or less protected from the worst of the cold rock candy stone at their backs, although the chill still seems determined to settle into Lapin’s skin. It will only be a matter of time until he cannot forcibly shake it off. 

Will he even make it that far?

The Pontifex seems sure he will; the thought does nothing for Lapin’s own confidence. He feels the same as he did the day before he stole the ritual to summon the Sugar Plum Fairy--anticipatory, vague dread, a little excitement. Lapin has never hidden from himself. He knows that he is, if nothing else, an adrenaline junkie. If he weren’t, he would never have been here in the first place. But this situation, even more than his predicament with the Sugar Plum Fairy, could spell his doom. The Church of the Bulb has never been something to mess with, and he has not only revealed himself as a traitor but has in fact revealed his contempt for the Bulb itself. 

Lapin strokes the chipped, cracked surface of Preston’s peppermint hide, automatically stilling when the pig lets out a pained wuffle. “Apologies, my little friend,” Lapin murmurs into the darkness. “It seems I have gotten us into quite the tight spot, haven’t I?”

But what else could he have done? Preston himself, his small cold body pressed reassuringly up against Lapin’s, is proof enough that he made the right choice. Liam was almost free, almost out the window with Sir Theobald, when he sent Preston back. He could have kept his only friend safe, but he did not. It means something to Lapin. It means he must not give up.

Lapin has never had the stomach for a fight. 

“For Candia.” He says, tired and alone and on the verge of some great precipice he cannot see. “For Candia, eh, Preston? Let us test our mettle.”

~

For weeks--perhaps months? It’s a ridiculous thought, but time is slippery here--Lapin does not get much of a chance to test his will against that of the Pontifex. His days are spent in a haze, pain flooding his brain when he would rather turn his thoughts to escape. He is served little food and even less water; still, Lapin takes it and refuses to admit how pathetically grateful he feels when he does. They don’t even try to bind him to the walls as they did Keradin before him; it would be of little use. He cannot do anything to stop them from doing what they want with him.

He feels silly for it but in the early days Lapin strips out of his outer robe and makes a nest for Preston in the darkest corner of the cell. When he finishes, the pig squeals as he jumps into the blue fabric--purple now, with the blood stiffening it-- and turns in circles before flopping down. He raises his small red eyes to Lapin and snuffles, his snout buried under the fabric. Lapin sighs and shifts to slowly slide down beside the pig. He rests his paw in his customary place on Preston’s back, lightly, carefully.

“You need a haircut,” Lapin mutters. His ribs swell against his skin as he breathes, but Lapin ignores it to break the stale bread he was given and crumble some in front of his companion. 

He is too weak to fight or even to stand most of the time. His grasp on his power is tenuous and mercurial; he can feel the Sweetening Path tingling at his senses, but it slips out of his reach every time. The Fairy does not answer his call.

_Useless_ , Lapin does not dare say aloud. _Utterly useless_. 

But as the days pass, he lives on. Slowly, painfully, he draws air into his lungs. His blood dries. His eyes open every morning. The cold seeps in and clings but he does not let it permeate.

The Pontifex visits in the late hours only twice. The first time she watches him quietly, staring through the darkness at him as he breathes through the blood in his throat. But the second time she comes with guards who drag the limp form of some other poor soul past her. She smiles at his huddled figure in the flickering candlelight she brings with her. He is used to the darkness now, how the shadows wrap around him, so Lapin only squints at her and grits his teeth. There is no way for him to tell time here, but it has been long since he’s seen a source of light besides the weak sunlight streaming in the slit windows at the top of his cell. 

Her mouth quirks. “Heretic.”

“Zealot.”

“What wisdom has your solitude granted you? Your Fairy has not come to your aid, not as the Bulb has come to ours.”

“At least my patron speaks to me,” Lapin rejoins. “At least she has the ability to speak. How quiet has your worship been all these years, Belizabeth?”

She hisses. “Lowly worm.” But then her face changes again, smooths out into a wicked smile. Lapin refuses to shiver. She and the rest of her church have the tactics of politicians and Lapin grew used to it long ago--and learned to keep up with the best of them. It will take much more for her to scare his wits from him. “Get ready, Lapin Cadbury. You will be presented as a prisoner of war in a week’s time. Candia will see just how futile it is to oppose the Church when they see their strongest magic user laid so low at our feet.”

Lapin’s mind buzzes, thoughts whirling. She’s trying to scare him and succeeding, but there’s something more here. Something better.

Better, at least, for his country. 

“Ah,” Lapin says, tilting his head in mock deference. “I see. And why would you need such a crass display, Pontifex? Is it perhaps,” he continues delicately, “because you have nothing better to threaten Candia with?”

She says nothing. It does not matter.

It is Lapin’s turn to smile dangerously now. “You’ve lost the royal family. They slipped through your fingers and now you’re scared of the power they hope to wield against you--you’re scared Amethar Rocks may find a way back to challenge the Bulb and you want to use me as a bargaining chip. Am I so far off the mark, Pontifex?”

“You are nothing,” she hisses. “You are an example. You will be presented as a prisoner to show how the Bulb favors our holy cause. Should your country prove to be as cowardly as your King and turn its back on you, you will be executed.”

It makes something in his core wither to hear, but Lapin has been readying himself for this. “Amethar was not a coward, Belizabeth--he was smart. Or have you forgotten you’re going up against some of the strongest war strategists Calorum has ever seen?”

“Your King abandoned you,” she bares her teeth, “and he will continue to do so. You would be better fit to repent your heresy and condemn him before you die needlessly.”

“I protected my King.” Lapin looks her in the eye and knows they will never be able to see each other, not truly, not even once, not even a little. “And I would do it again. You nor the Bulb nor the Hungry One nor any spirit of the Sweetening Path will ever be able to convince me to regret that.”

Brassica sets her jaw grimly and steps back from the bars of his cell. “Your words are brave, Lapin, and very foolish. We shall see how your resolve holds up when your royal family falls beneath the wrath of the Bulb.”

Lapin tells himself he is only trembling from the cold as she leaves.

~

Lapin takes to doing laps around his cell. At first it is slow going and uncomfortable; his whole left side is a mess of broken bones and chocolate. He is scared to move for a long time, but the Bulbian Church is making moves somewhere beyond his reach and he can do nothing lying on the floor. So Lapin stands and walks, back and forth, back and forth, all day. If he is to die, he will do it standing tall.

It is repetitive and boring. Lapin grits his teeth and does it anyway. First he can only take a few steps before he stumbles to his knees; he cracks his shoulder against stone more than a few times. His left arm hangs limp against his chest more often than not. The first swing of the mace had caught him right in the junction between his clavicle and the arm socket. He doesn’t have the strength to try to set it back into place and is entirely unsure if that could even work. He is no cleric, and as much as he feels the Sweetening Path beckoning him, Lapin has been unable to summon any healing spells. There is something blocking him here; he began with the assumption he was too weak, but it has been enough time now that he should be able to feel the sway of his patron. That he does not, and that Brassica can still use her magic here--she has put out the candles with a wave of her hand every time she has come to taunt him--indicates that perhaps only Bulbian magic works in the prison. That, or there are runes here specifically blocking the power of the Sweetening Path itself. He can tell little inside this cell.

So Lapin can only stand and pace. After four days he can make it the length of his cell within an hour or two. Then he whittles it down to within half an hour. His ribs scratch at his skin but he holds himself up and breathes. Preston presses against his knees as he works, and Lapin gives him most of the bread that night.

It is only after a time that his cell neighbor takes notice of his daily trips. He stumbles once and lands harshly against the bars of his cell door, provoking an awful clanging. As his breathing returns to normal, black spots dancing in front of his eyes, Lapin hears a person shift in the cell to his right before a voice croaks out. “What in the blazing hells are you doin’ over there?”

Lapin knows this voice. A spark bursts in his heart, but he cannot place it. “Who exactly am I speaking to?” He asks after a short pause.

“Eh, I asked first, stranger. Learned enough about your interrogation practices not to give any information I’m not forced to. What makes you so sure I don’t think this is some kinda trick?”

He _knows_ this voice. Lapin racks his brain and suddenly, like a prophetic vision, flashes upon King Amethar laughing in a feasting hall with his arm around a small, stout block of cheese in a captain’s hat. Something in Lapin twists at the memory of his liege’s smiling visage, but he pushes it away with vehemence. A captain, rough around the edges, from the Dairy Islands…

“Manta Ray Jack?” Lapin asks quietly. There are no guards in sight, but one can never be sure here. They are deep into enemy territory, after all. “Is that you? It’s Lapin Cadbury.”

“Chancellor,” Manta Ray Jack breathes. Lapin hears him shift, groaning uncomfortably, and move slowly towards their shared wall. “I didn’t see you get out that night in the church. Guess I’m not too surprised to see ya here, then.”

“I’m not a chancellor anymore, I’m afraid. Don’t move more than you must on my account, Jack. I, too, have felt the ‘wrath of the Bulb’; I wouldn’t have you hurt yourself any more.”

Manta Ray Jack laughs at his sarcastic tone. “Never was one to go down without a fight, Cadbury, and I ain’t too surprised you aren’t either. Candia grows sturdy stock, same as the Islands.”

“Evidently,” Lapin replies dryly. “Now if only we could actually walk we might be able to show them the true power of our countries, eh?”

“No use in that kind of talk down here. You’ll lose your mind if you don’t straighten your spine.”

Lapin mulls this over for a time. The shadows are growing, night approaching. How long has he been here? Weeks at least, but time feels stretched here, long and slippery like an eel. How long did it take for the royal family to escape back to Candia? Brassica will have his head soon, she said as much; it was why Lapin walked so much these past couple of days. He wants to die standing on his own two feet, as he almost lost the chance to in the church that night. If she wants a demonstration of power it means she couldn’t catch the House of Rocks, which is good, but what next? War, of course, he’s already realized this. Thoughts spin in his head, around and around with nowhere to go, like circling the inside of a fishbowl. He knows all this, knows he will die and war will overtake Calorum and that his standing on his own power will not matter but Manta Ray Jack’s words ring with a truth Lapin can feel in his bones.

Lapin will not lose himself to this. Something in him shifts, as it had on his first night here when he promised himself Liam’s sacrifice of Preston and his own sacrifice for the House of Rocks would not be in vain. As he slides to the ground Preston leaps into his lap but Lapin barely feels it. His chest gets tight and he breathes through it. His eyes feel too dry but he opens them all the same and breathes through that too. As he breathes, there in the dark, separated from another fallen comrade by just one layer of stone, Lapin reaches out for his power once again. But this time Lapin goes farther, opens himself not only to the Sweetening Path and to the Fairy, but to the power of Candia and the Dairy Islands and beyond. He opens himself and breathes and _reaches_. 

“Manta Ray Jack,” Lapin hears his own voice faintly, as if from very far away, “keep a lookout, would you?”

Manta Ray Jack’s reply is muffled--“trying some shysty maneuvers are we, ha-ha!”--and Lapin disregards it, instead closes off his other senses, focus narrowing down to a pinpoint. He searches the ether with his mind, pushing far past his boundaries. He screams silently into the void he knows his magic comes from, where all power, Bulbian and not, must root from. His insight into the Bulb comes back to him now; cleric and paladin and warlock magic are all the same in the end. An unknowing god is still a source of potent power no matter what name the wielder gives themself. 

A bright presence, dull and unknowing, falls into his grasp and Lapin _pulls_ . His paws clench in his robes and around Preston and he focuses on this new feeling flowing through him. It is unlike the magic he knows from the Fairy; it is not sweet but instead smells of plant growth and good soil. He wraps himself and the pig in it and concentrates on reeling in all the energy he can. Lapin stares out into the darkness of his cell, his body screaming from near death, and casts _Cure Wounds_. 

He shouldn’t be able to do this as a warlock of the Sugar Plum Fairy. Lapin grins into the dark and does it anyway. How would dear Belizabeth react, should she find that she and Lapin Cadbury, heretic apostate, share Bulbian magic now? Oh, but he wishes he could see her face. 

Preston snuffles curiously and raises his head as golden light shines from Lapin’s palm against his cracked peppermint hide. He tilts his head, red eyes wide, as his wounds close and seal up. The pig squeals and jumps up to lick Lapin’s face and he doesn’t bother holding back a delighted chuckle. It worked. _It worked!_ Not totally, of course; Preston’s ear is still a jagged broken thing and Lapin himself feels as if he is on death’s doorstep when the magic takes its toll, but his little friend can walk more than hobble and one wrong shift from Lapin isn’t going to break him anymore.

Lapin blows out a breath, sure to keep quiet in case any guards are nearby, but they are usually left alone in the night. Manta Ray Jack would warn them. He is safe, in a relative way, and healthier than a moment before, though it is not himself he has cast healing on. He has power at his disposal again, a power no one, not the House of Rocks nor the Sugar Plum Fairy nor the Pontifex herself, could ever count on him having. 

One ear flops forward in his face as he leans down to press his forehead against Peppermint Preston’s. The pig shuffles close and _oinks_ quietly, seeming to understand the gravity of what has just happened. The edge of Lapin’s ear, similarly missing from a mace swing, brushes against Preston’s cracked ear and Lapin smiles slightly. “We are the same, aren’t we?” He whispers. “Survivors, eh? We’ll get out of this yet.”

Preston licks his face again in agreement and Lapin slumps back on the wall, spent but elated. This changes everything. Lapin had never been very good at being helpless and this new strength settles some of the fluttery, panicked feelings in his chest. He may still die tomorrow. He may not be able to stop war from consuming Candia. But Manta Ray Jack was right about one thing; by all the gods Lapin can draw power from, he shall not sit and wait for his fate to claim him without a fight. 

He waits until his breath comes to his lungs without much difficulty before trying more. When it does, Lapin reaches back into that void and clutches the power he has now, pulling and pulling and wrapping it around himself in a golden shroud. This _Cure Wounds_ is harder to cast; Lapin can only pull a little into himself after just beginning to explore this new magic. But he still gasps in relief as his palms glow again and some of his ribs slot back into their proper place. His left arm still hangs limp but as Lapin sags back against the wall, Bulbian gold fading from his form and a happy pig sticking his snout in his ear, he cannot help but grin.

No, the Bulbian Church shall not break him yet. 

That night he stays awake. Jack speaks to him often and Lapin finds himself responding. Whenever his companion falls silent Lapin feels panic spike in his gut and he calls out. The sailor always answers. Lapin keeps his new discoveries locked in his throat though; he still cannot do much without almost passing out, and it would not do to get Jack’s hopes up prematurely. They both may die in the morning anyway. 

They’ve fallen silent for a time, Preston curled warmly against Lapin’s chest, when a flicker of fire lights up at the end of the corridor leading to their cells. It is a candle. Lapin braces himself for her face to peer down at his misery; it is fitting, after all, for the Pontifex to visit her prisoner the night before his fate is decided by his King. He wonders if Brassica felt his power surging or if somehow she is so tapped into the Bulb that she can tell when others use it as a magic source. Fear eats at the edges of his mind.

But the face that appears out of the darkness trudging towards the cells is not Vegetanian. 

“Sir Morris Brie as I live and breathe!” Manta Ray Jack’s exclamation rocks through Lapin and he jolts to his feet.

Sir Morris Brie steps up to their cells and Lapin loses all his breath. The man holds a ring of keys in his fist, knuckles bloodied and scrapped. He smiles and sends shivers through Lapin as hope overtakes him. It is cloying and desperate and clouds his mind so much he jerks to his feet, sending Preston away with a yelp. His newly healed bones and the ones not yet seen to groan and scrap in protest and Lapin leans dizzily on the wall. 

The knight comes closer still, looking between Lapin and where Lapin assumes Manta Ray Jack is standing. “Gentlemen. I believe it is time for us to leave this place.”

“We’ve certainly overstayed our welcome.”

“Candia--” Lapin interjects, unthinkingly, instinctively. “What of-- and the House Rocks--”

“A spirit’s voice told me to save Manta Ray Jack from the Church’s prison, Chancellor Lapin,” Sir Brie says, looking regretful. “I have not heard nor seen anything of Candia.”

Thoughts of the Fairy haunt him. “You cannot always trust spirits.”

“This time I did.” Brie replies, moving to unlock Jack’s cell. The sailor comes bounding out, looking much the worse for wear but excited nonetheless. He grins lopsidedly at Lapin as he turns to look into the warlock’s cell. “And it has led me to you, so I’d think you’d be advised not to speak ill of your saviors, Chancellor.”

Brie moves to his cell and Lapin lurches forward. It is as if he is swimming through the air rather than taking steps until he jolts against the bars. His face is very near Brie’s. He blinks rapidly, trying to think--

“Don’t.” Lapin orders. Some far corner of his mind is screaming at him, but duty weighs heavily on his shoulders and Lapin forces them straight. He locks his eyes with Brie’s. “Leave me here. Take Manta Ray Jack and leave for--for the Islands, or Port Syrup, just get out of this place while you can.”

“Chancellor, what--”

“You can’t expect us to leave you behind, lad!”

“There is no time!” Lapin snaps. “You must go, and with two injured it will take too much time for you to get back to a ship, Brie. King Amethar needs you both; Candia needs you both. If I were to guess, Candia will ally themselves with the Dairy Islands if given the chance--you must help my country. You must get out of here and live to fight another day.”

“We could help Candia by freeing you, you idiot!” Jack cries, eyes wild. Brie nods uncertainly. 

“I do not know if the Dairy Islands will be able or willing to help Candia in the coming fight, but it is not right to leave you here when you could help your country, Chancellor.”

“I am not a chancellor anymore. Correct me if I am wrong, Sir Morris, but if Manta Ray Jack and I both disappear, we will be hunted down under the assumption that we escaped together--an assumption, should we be caught, that would prove correct. Even if we are not, it is too suspicious. We both go and it will declare to Calorum that the Dairy Islands have sided with Candia before either of our countries are ready. Or if we are caught and news gets to Candia, Amethar will be liable to bring the war to the Pontifex. Do this to help my country or do it to help your own, gentlemen, but the conclusion is the same: you must leave me.”

He waits with bated breath while both seem to slump with the realization that he is correct. “We can’t just leave you.” Manta Ray Jack does not lift his eyes to Lapin’s. 

“You must.” Lapin replies, even as the words taste like ash in his mouth. “Now go, men. Flee. Tell no one you met me here.”

“You are a war prisoner now!” Brie argues. “If you stay here, you will be executed before the week is out!”

Annoyance and fear gnaw at Lapin. His stomach turns. They could be right; he could be sentencing himself to death before the Pontifex even has the chance to do the job for him. “Perhaps. But you’ll find I have more than a few tricks up my sleeve. It is as you said, Jack: I must straighten my spine before I lose myself.”

They do not move, looking at each other before turning back to Lapin. Before either can open their mouths, Lapin cuts a paw through the air. “Enough. I have made my argument. You only have so long before the guards you beat unconscious are found anyway. You must go before you both end up in my position.”

The Islanders waiver before Manta Ray Jack strides forward and presses something cool and metallic into Lapin’s paw. “I nicked it off the guard who threw me in here,” he mutters. “Couldn’t use it, was always useless at magic, but if you’re as good as they say--I hope it’s of use to ya, is all.”

As they reach the end of the corridor, Sir Morris Brie turns for one last look before leaving and taking the light with him.

~

Deeproot comes for Lapin in the morning. Lapin is ready for him. 

He spends the rest of the night awake, regret not letting him rest. He should have gone with Brie, he should have ignored Brassica’s summons to the church that night in the first place, he should have told Theobald to take Liam and run before they went to the church and he should have convinced Amethar to break from the Empire before it was too late.

But it _is_ too late. For Lapin, at least. 

Keradin Deeproot stands in his cell’s doorway, broad shoulders blocking out most of the light from the hallway. It is just past dawn. It is time for him to be presented to Calorum. The time has come for Candia to decide his fate. The normal guards have come and gone by now, and the church knows that someone collected Manta Ray Jack from his own cell. Lapin was sent glares and suspicious glances all morning, but so far his ruse has worked; no ally would ever leave him in his cell and so the Dairy Islanders are safe for now.

As Lapin struggles to his feet he cannot help but sneer. Something strange and savage curls in his throat; it makes him want to fight, to rage as Princess Jet would. He wants to tear into the paladin before him, as futile as it would be. He can feel sparks of his new magic draw to his paws, tipping his claws. 

Deeproot tilts his head, those empty eyes calculating and sharp. Something in Lapin’s own expression must change because the carrot reaches out, quick as a whip, and snatches something out of the corner by the door. Lapin starts forward involuntarily as Keradin hefts Preston aloft by the scruff of his neck. The pig’s squeal is shrill in Lapin’s ears. 

“Will you come?” The paladin asks. Lapin’s teeth grind down so hard he’s surprised they don’t crack. Deeproot’s brows arch and, expression unchanging, he shakes Preston, hard and unforgiving. The pig shrieks and Lapin’s bones rattle with it. This is why they let Preston live, then. They think they can control Lapin by hurting the _pet?_ Lapin instinctively scoffs--until Deeproot balls his fist in Preston’s hide tighter before he raises him up as if to shatter him on the stone floor.

“ _Yes!_ ” It is out of his mouth before Lapin is aware he has even spoken. The magic swelling in him dies in an instant. “Yes--stop. Stop!”

His stomach curdles at how pathetic he sounds to his own ears but--but--

It is funny, in a sick sort of way Lapin knows the Fairy would appreciate immensely, that Lapin has survived so long due to his self-preservation only to be laid so low due to his compassion now. All that he has done since Liam was accused appalls the part of Lapin that led him to try to bind the Fairy to his will all those years ago. He used to want power and comfort and his own safety guaranteed before all else. Yet here he is, broken and bleeding for weeks on end because Liam seemed so afraid in that church. Here he is, the great and powerful warlock of the Sugar Plum Fairy, unable to stand one measly, insignificant pig’s pain because the animal had tried to die with him. 

Lapin’s stomach turns with loathing at the idea of empathy, but the fog in his mind burns away as Keradin drops Preston.

The pig scrambles away, yelping, and curls around Lapin’s ankles before skidding into the dark recesses of the cell. Lapin leaves his outer robe in the nest he has made for Preston as he goes with Deeproot. Every step jolts his arm against the socket but his ribs no longer threaten to tear his flesh apart and Lapin takes strength from that.

In the blink of an eye, they are back in the cathedral Lapin assumed would be his last sight--his resting place. It still may be. Deeproot shackled his wrists when he stepped out of his cell and now they mount the steps to the dais where the Pontifex stands, basking in the light of an uncaring God. The entire congregation is here, and Lapin squints against the light and sound coming off of the crowds; he has not been in such brightness for a long time. He nearly stumbles as he takes his place between the Pontifex and her chosen knight of the Bulb. But he regains his feet, unwilling to kneel to the Bulb anymore.

No, Lapin Cadbury will not be broken yet. 

His promise to himself reverberates in his chest, makes Lapin straighten his back-- _you’ll lose your mind if you don’t straighten your spine_ \--and raise his chin. 

The congregation is a roiling mass of bodies, mostly Fructeran or Vegetanian. He spies Basha and Scravoya Myaso standing in the wings, looking severely disgruntled. Myaso catches his eye and Lapin holds his gaze until the Meatlander tears himself away. Lapin sees his jaw twitch and is absurdly reminded of Sir Theobald and the arguments they used to get into. Interesting. There may be something there yet.

The Pontifex steps forward and all voices in the cathedral quiet. She spreads her arms, face calm and welcoming. “Loyal followers of the Bulb, I have called you here from the far reaches of Calorum to witness the results of the first breach of the Empire’s truce there has been since its formation.”

Keradin’s grip on his uninjured shoulder is unyielding. Lapin does not wince as he is shoved forward. His chin stays up. He keeps his eyes forward. The Fairy always did tell him his pride would get him killed one day.

It’s better than cowardice.

The Pontifex gestures again, holding her hand out in front of Lapin. “Candia has strayed from the Bulb’s golden light and has embraced the powers of the Hungry One. Lapin Cadbury, Candian heretic, brought this poison into the Church itself under the guise of chancellorship.”

Gasps and sounds of shock go up around the church and Lapin nearly snorts at the melodrama of it all. 

“The apostate aided Liam Wilhelmina, convicted witch of the Sweetening Path, and Amethar Rocks, traitor to the crown and to the Empire, in their escape from Bulbian apprehension. The former regent and his family abandoned the apostate to his fate in our hands; they have no loyalty. They have no honor.”

Brassica turns and regards him. Lapin meets her eyes and laments that she is not within spitting distance again. “Heretic, would you abandon the House Rocks as they have abandoned you? The Bulb is merciful and loving. The Church follows its example. Repent, and you shall earn forgiveness.”

It would be best if Lapin keeps his mouth shut. He is in deep enough as it is, he could at least make things a little easier on himself. Or should he repent? Simply tell the Pontifex what she wants to hear from him, as he has done for years? He could hide in plain sight until it is advantageous to escape; or perhaps her argument has merit. He could simply leave Candia to its fate and fade away when the Pontifex isn’t looking. It is what he would have done before--but he is not the same person he was before. Still, a trick might be within his power. 

But no--insight tells Lapin she would know. For a moment he is confused as to the gut feeling he has until he stretches his senses out further. Her eyes are wild and her fingers twitch lightly where they extend towards him. Sparks of that magic he used last night are rolling off her, pressing at the edges of Lapin’s consciousness. He smells healthy soil and fruit and vegetables. She has cast _Zone of Truth._ It chafes at him to realize that all of his carefully crafted image, the deception he has layered upon himself like a cloak of shadows for years, has been ripped away by someone so self-satisfied. 

Lapin reaches out and slaps her hand away. He bares his teeth in a grin turned feral. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he believes the Princesses might be proud.

The Pontifex snarls and Keradin jerks Lapin back, nearly choking him as his grip turns to steel. Then the Pontifex whirls and addresses the murmuring crowd again, head held high. Her voice is edged with flame. “The Candians have abandoned the faith and have abandoned the Empire. We are at war. But if the disgraced King Amethar wishes to keep his former Chancellor’s blood from being spilled, he will answer our summons. He will present himself for sentencing. He will submit to the power of the Bulb. If he refuses, Lapin Cadbury will be executed in a week’s time.”

Silence descends again as she turns her head, gaze sweeping back and forth. The royal families of Fructera and Vegetania are still and scared under her power. Her arms spread again and she tilts her head back as if to embrace the light streaming into the cathedral itself. “It is the will of the Bulb.”

“It is the will of the Bulb,” the congregation choruses back. Out of the corner of his eye, fear clogging his throat, Lapin notices Myaso’s lips do not move. Interesting indeed.

~

The Pontifex seems done with him now. Lapin suspects the message of his capture and, more importantly, his survival of the battle in the cathedral, will reach Candia very soon. If Brie and Jack have not informed the House of Rocks by now, then the threats the Bulbian Church made against his life and the ransom they offered will get back to Candia’s leaders themselves by dawn at the latest. Queen Caramelinda will not be pleased.

Lapin waits. It is what he is best at. Guards come and go, rotating out on shifts that his King would urge him to memorize for a gap in attention. But Lapin closes his eyes when he is thrown back into his cell and does not stop his meditation for anything. He props himself against the wall, making a show of favoring his left side as he does; it will not do now for his captors to know he is healthier than they think he is. Preston creeps into his lap hours later, as evening falls. They are not served dinner tonight. Lapin cannot bring himself to be surprised.

He waits and waits and does not sleep. Slowly, like the tickle of light rain, his new magic collects in his soul again. He still cannot do much; the tingling sweetness of the Fairy’s pact remains out of his grasp. There must be some wards in place to block that specific magic if he can still access the Bulb. Lapin at first focuses on the earthy scent of the Bulb, breathing deep and waiting for the right moment to pull it into himself. He may not have been caught yet, but the Pontifex has a disturbing habit of visiting him in the night. Lapin cannot be sure she will not appear and witness his new source of magic. He must be quick, and bold, and brave.

All things out of Lapin’s comfort zone if he is honest.

But as he begins to tease at the edges of his magical awareness, readying himself to cast, his attention is caught by something else. A darker sweetness pulls at his senses, something beyond his own Sweetening Path abilities. Something great and hungry yawns before Lapin. It smells of cinnamon and cloves. 

Lapin hesitates--and plunges.

The copper wire Manta Ray Jack gifted him the night before twists and twines between his paws as Lapin breathes in the power of the Hungry One and whispers, “Sir Theobald, can you hear me? This is Lapin.”

The _Sending_ makes him wait but Lapin has always been patient. Then the large goon’s voice resounds in Lapin’s mind, more frantic and surprised than he knows how to deal with. “Lapin? I--we thought you’d died! Where are you--how--”

“This spell only allows for twenty-five words, Theobald. Careful how you speak. I’m trapped by the Church and I cannot _Send_ too much at once.”

“Right. I--You’re still with the Pontifex then? We’ve made our way back to Port Syrup and met with the Dairy Islanders.”

The explicit question about his own situation makes Lapin shy away. “Did Brie get Jack out as I told him to? Have they allied with Candia?”

“Yes. I believe they’ll help us. We saved Primsy Coldbottle from her new husband’s assassination attempts. We go to Castle Candy now to ready ourselves.”

Lapin’s muscles feel as if they are turning to water. He cannot hold this spell for much longer. “Good. Candia must be prepared for a full assault. The Pontifex wants power for herself.”

“Lapin…” Theobald pauses long enough that he thinks the connection has been severed. Despair has begun to flood him when the knight speaks again. “What are you not telling me? I don’t know how long it will take to get you back home--”

Lapin takes a moment to think, mind racing. He needs to tell Candia of his imprisonment and the deal for his survival the Pontifex offered before they get it secondhand. They must know that he is willing to do what it takes to protect their country. He made the sacrifice play ages ago, and for far less dire consequences. As far as Lapin is concerned--or so he tells himself--he has already been dead for a long time. He just needs to be sure the House of Rocks knows that too. He needs to tell them it is futile to even think of his survival in conjunction with Candia’s. But Sir Gumbar has always been--softer, perhaps, than most would assume. He is loyal and kind and a good knight for his King; Lapin fears he might not have the heart to accept the fact he can’t protect them all.

Perhaps, then, Lapin should fall back onto old habits. Theobald always responded angrily to their banter--if he upsets the knight enough, he could alienate him to the extent that he overlooks the danger Lapin is in. It’s a longshot, but it is all Lapin has, and he is running out of time. If he does not convince Theobald to leave him, he will tell Amethar and Lapin’s King is too honorable for his own good. Selfishness clings to Lapin.

“ _You will not come to get me_.” Lapin hisses. It is hard not to raise his voice. In his mind’s eye, Lapin can see Theobald’s affronted expression, gearing up for one of their old arguments. It would be comforting if rage and sorrow and panic were not fueling him now. He cannot be the source of any doubt in the House of Rocks. Lapin refuses to become a liability for all of Candia. “No matter what you hear, Theobald, you must not return to Comida until you have won the war.”

“What has happened?” Theobald asks, quiet, fearful, determined. It is enough to take all the wind out of Lapin’s sails. He can’t do this. This--it’s too much. He’s dead. He’s dying. He will never go home, never see Theobald’s offended expression when they argue again. “What else is there?”

Lapin blinks his eyes open and tells himself tears do not mat his fur. “I have been sentenced to death should our King not return for me. Do not tell Amethar, Theobald. You must protect Candia. _Please,_ my friend.”

“ _Lapin--_ ”

Lapin loses his grip on the magic before Theobald’s last exclamation can be finished. Regret gnaws at him again and Lapin only spares a cursory glance about for witnesses before he buries his head in his knees and sobs. 

~

Theo waits to tell King Amethar until they have arrived back in the castle. It seems prudent to wait until they are far enough away from Port Syrup that none of the House Rocks will be tempted to get back on a boat and ship out to find their wayward rabbit. Gods know Theo has a hard time of it himself; his eyes never stop catching on Annabelle Cheddar’s ship until its wake fades from Candian waters. It would be so easy to simply find the others and repeat all he has been told. Lapin wouldn’t even know he’d done it…

But Cadbury had asked this of him. Cadbury had _trusted_ him with this. Theo has no choice but to keep his trap shut until there is no time to launch a rescue. That does not mean his stomach does not turn over as he trails behind his Princesses. The monk they’ve picked up keeps pace with him and Theo’s heart sinks in time with their footfalls as Ruby leads the way to Lapin’s shrine. Liam’s arm is wrapped gently around Ruby’s shoulders and Jet’s hand is in hers. 

There is a cracked teacup at the foot of the stone. Ruby, reverent, unfolds Lapin’s note and places it under the teacup gently. Liam scatters seeds around it. Cumulous is meditating somewhere behind Theo. Theobald stands there in the middle of this tableau, hands empty and heart heavy and knowing he can offer nothing. _He’s alive._ The words flare at the base of his throat, wanting out. Even as he wrangles them up and buries them deep, Theo feels them burn. _Lapin is not lost. We haven’t lost yet. We could save him._ It is not time yet. But soon.

_My friend,_ Lapin had called him. _Please, my friend._

How could Cadbury expect Theo to leave him behind when he said that? 

Theo turns and makes his way out of the clearing as respectfully as he can. It still feels as if he soils something irreparably. But he cannot turn back, not even when his conscience screams at him. His King and Queen are waiting. He finds them in their private chambers, obviously at odds. Amethar’s head hangs heavy with guilt. Caramelinda’s eyes spark as Theo enters after knocking shortly, but Theobald is not afraid now. This is too important to be cowed. 

“Lapin is alive,” he says, skipping his usual preamble. The words catch in his throat anyway.

Amethar jerks to his feet and Caramelinda blinks in shock. “Wh-what? Theo, what are you--what the hell?”

“He cast _Sending_ to me when we were in Port Syrup. He told me he was alive and that he was a prisoner of the Church.”

“ _Sending_ is not a spell of the Sweetening Path,” Caramelinda replies, recovering herself quickly. She arches a brow. “Perhaps you were mistaken. Or someone is trying to trick you. I wouldn’t put it past the Pontifex to try to lure King Amethar back with something like this.”

That is not something Theo had thought of before. Perhaps she is right--after all, Lapin had not acted very much like himself during their brief exchange. Sure, he’d been short and irritated, but he’d also sounded more than a little desperate. He’d asked Theo not to come back, selflessly. There was not a lot in their past Theo could point to and say Lapin had been selfless about.

“You could be right,” he allows. Something in the back of his mind tickles at him. “Although he said not to come get him.”

A paw on his shoulder, casting _Fly_. A figure pushing between Deeproot and Liam. Lapin crossing a smoking battlefield to heal their King in the middle of the fray after bringing Princess Ruby back to life. Perhaps he was too harsh; there is plenty of evidence to Lapin’s true character, the one the rabbit thought he was so clever to hide behind swaths of snark and bitterness and intellect. Theo feels as if his eyes are open for perhaps the first time. Guilt chokes him, making his next words hard to speak. 

“I think it was genuine.” Theo decides. “I think it really was Lapin. He told me that the Pontifex is trying to gain power over Calorum and that we had to get Candia ready for war. He knew Manta Ray Jack was captured and said he’d seen Sir Brie come to get him. If it wasn’t Lapin, how could he have known it was Brie?”

“Brie could have been seen.” Amethar says, but Theo can sense he is wavering.

“If it weren’t one of ours who saw him, Brie would already be dead and the Dairy Islanders cast out like we have been.” Caramelinda rubs her forehead, hard. “Fine, so it is Lapin. It still doesn’t explain how he managed to cast magic outside of the Sweetening Path. Amethar, you said he was actually a follower of the Sugar Plum Fairy all this time?”

“Yeah, he broke from the Church pretty much immediately when they threatened Liam and me. Seemed like he was hiding it from everybody and pretending to be a chancellor. What did he say?” Amethar asks, eager now. “Why didn’t you tell us this in Port Syrup, Theo? We could’ve--sent somebody back or something.”

Now comes the tricky part. Lapin told him of his imprisonment and asked him to let the King know with the explicit instruction to omit the terms of his release. Theo knows--and suspects Lapin knows too--that even if Amethar did hear and agree to give himself up for the former chancellor, Lapin would never get out alive. It would only let the Bulbian Church kill two birds with one stone. They can’t think Candia would truly be so naive as to expect them not to go back on their word as soon as they had the royal family in their clutches.

But if this ransom has been announced to the general public it is only a matter of time before it gets back to the House of Rocks through some other channel. Wouldn’t it be better for Theo to tell them instead? It could soften the blow. He could get Amethar to see reason and promise not to return for Lapin--oh, how that stings at Theo’s pride, that he cannot help but advocate for the loss of one of their own--with Caramelinda’s help. If Lapin’s death sentence comes as a shock, the King and his daughters might do something drastic in the heat of the moment before Theo can come to their aid. He could lose their trust and be excluded from any other plans that might fail and put the royal family in danger. 

“I--like I said, he told us not to come back for him. He said it isn’t safe, and I agree. The way he spoke, it seems like Lapin is under constant watch and the Pontifex is keeping a close eye on him.” It’s a coward’s way out but lies of omission may be all he has left.

“If it isn’t safe for us, it’s twice as dangerous for Lapin.”

Theo tries not to meet his King’s eyes, but in avoiding them, catches the Queen’s. Something like comprehension breaks over her expression before it smooths out to stoic professionalism. She truly is a great leader. “Amethar. Theobald is right; it’s too dangerous. If Lapin says not to come back, we shouldn’t go. In fact, I believe we will have to take any correspondence coming to Candia from the rest of Calorum--bar the Dairy Islands, I suppose--with a grain of salt. We can assume that only Lapin’s own messages are the truth.”

Amethar’s brow wrinkles as he looks between them. His King might not be as sharp as the Queen, but Amethar has always had a keen sense of people. He knows something is wrong. “We can’t just leave him there.”

“It is Lapin’s wish, Amethar.” Caramelinda says, eyes glittering. “Would you disrespect the man’s last wishes for our House after all he has done for us? For Liam?”

“Wh--no, of course not! But that’s _why_ we have to go back for him! He’s in this because of us. Because of _me_.”

Theo’s heart twists. _Please, my friend._

“The whole of Candia is at war because of you.” Caramelinda snaps. Her words hit Amethar like a physical blow; his head jerks back and his face goes strangely blank. His jaw hardens. Theobald looks away. His stomach churns. _You must protect Candia. Please, my friend._ “It’s time to take some godsdamned responsibility.”

Amethar’s face shifts, screwing up tightly, before he speaks again, hoarse. “I looked back. We were getting out and I waited and I looked back. He was still conscious when I jumped.”

“I jumped too,” Theo reminds him quietly, and knows it is not enough.

“Right.” Amethar breathes. His shoulders slump but only for a moment. Then he draws himself together, lets the sorrow and anger and hopelessness Theo can see in the lines of his body slide off of him like so much water. Theo feels his own posture respond unconsciously, his shoulders straightening and his feet shifting to parade rest. It is time for them to lead their nation. “Right. Okay--okay, right. Theo, we’ll need to get Candia ready for a siege if that’s what the Pontifex is planning. Get your guard prepared. I’ll need to speak with Cruller tonight.”

“Yes, my Liege.” Theo answers, and ignores the lump in his throat as he leaves. _Please, my friend._

~

Lapin sleeps the rest of the night through and well into the next day, slumped over against the cell wall. He had just enough presence of mind to tuck the copper wire away carefully before drawing his robes around himself and falling into unconsciousness. Whatever that magic was that he harnessed, it did not react well with the wards against non-Bulbian magic Comida obviously had in place around the church and prison. 

There is a tingle in the back of Lapin’s mind. _You know what that magic was,_ says an inner voice that sounds annoyingly similar to the Fairy’s. _It was not Bulbian and it was not of the Sweetening Path. It was of the Hungry One. You have harnessed all three now. What will you do with it?_

Still, there is not much Lapin _can_ do, even with this unprecedented growth in his magical abilities, if they leave him gasping and sweating for hours afterward. Part of that is the fact he still hasn’t healed fully; he’s been trying to use _Healing Word_ instead of _Cure Wounds_ , seeing as it takes less physical power, but it is a close thing for him. He is too old and too broken to make much headway on the terrible state of his arm, and he wonders when he can categorize it as a lost cause. It feels like soon. Within the week, of course, it won’t matter. The Pontifex will have his head.

Lapin wakes to late afternoon light streaming into his cell and resists the urge to curse. He only gets so much light these days without his guards to bring him candles--the war effort must already be underway, since there have been fewer and fewer soldiers relegated to babysitting him. It works for Lapin; whatever new magic he practices, he has to be able to do it unseen or risk being murdered on the spot. Still, being so cut off from the outside world makes something in Lapin crumple and whimper. He has never done well in shackles. But the light and lack of guards are not the true source of Lapin’s worry: Sir Keradin Deeproot is standing at the bars of his cell. 

Lapin clambers up slowly, forcing himself not to move too fast. Not only will it stress his remaining injuries, but Keradin is sharp-eyed. He would be able to observe that Lapin is moving much too easily for how hard he was hit in the cathedral. Lapin only has so much time left and he intends to use it to its full potential, which means not causing a ruckus until it is convenient. (He keeps trying to tell himself he’s already a dead man but that little piece of him, the bit that urged him to take the Fairy’s tome and make something of himself, screams in denial.) 

“Sir Deeproot,” Lapin says, affecting the regalness it took him years to perfect in the court of Candia. “To whatever do I owe the unfortunate pleasure?” 

Preston keeps his snuffling to a minimum in the paladin’s presence but curls around Lapin’s ankles. The piglet turns at the sound of the paladin’s voice and Lapin has to stop himself from reaching out and scooping him up protectively. 

“The execution will happen at dawn in six days’ time.” The carrot tilts his head. Lapin does not know what to do when he looks into those empty eyes. At Lapin’s feet Preston _oinks_ , indignant, and sets himself in front of Lapin, legs spread and ears--what remains of them--pricked forward. Lapin feels a surge of warmth for the tiny thing. The little fool, as if he could protect Lapin. Lapin can’t even protect himself now, not with all the power in the realms. (Not yet.) “Do you repent?” 

“I do not. I never will. You are fighting a losing battle if you are trying to convince me of the Bulb’s forgiveness, Deeproot.”

Keradin shifts his weight. “The Bulb is merciful. You would not be harmed if you accepted its light into your heart.”

Lapin scoffs with unexpected mirth. “I’m sorry to say that I cannot see how that could be, but perhaps that is because our perspectives are so different. For instance, you haven't looked at this situation from the inside of a prison cell.”

“The Church could not excuse your aid of criminals, Cadbury. But we follow the Bulb’s will and if it wills you to repent, we shall forgive as the scripture dictates.”

“Well, excuse me,” Lapin spits, venom in his veins, “but the Church did not feel so merciful when your mace was bearing down on me. The Church did not feel so merciful when I was looking up at you and the Pontifex from the cathedral floor drenched in my own blood. And the Church will not feel so merciful when the noose tightens around my neck, so I kindly ask you to leave me be!”

Deeproot stills. He stares. Then he nods once, slowly, and walks away. 

Lapin sighs, bewildered and more than irritated, his stomach roiling with rage and sorrow and a healthy dose of fear, and tries to put the strange occurrence behind him. Instead, he slides into a meditation pose, up on his knees with his back as straight as he can get without jostling his shoulder too much, and breathes in deep. Preston curls up at his side, cool and constant. Lapin cups his paws in his lap and lets his senses wander, reaching out to the magic he has felt in the past few days. It is hard work; he bumps up against the wards keeping him from the Sweetening Path again and gives it up as a lost cause. The Bulb’s magic swirls around him, centering on his shoulder. Lapin can feel a few fibers of his muscles knit back together and he breathes out slow. But it will not pay for him to focus on healing magics now, not if he wants to listen to the small part of himself that wishes to make it out of this alive. Lapin will not lie to himself; half of his sudden want to survive, as silly as he knows it is, is out of pure spite. He wants to see the Pontifex’s face when he slips out of her hands.

So Lapin lets the Bulb’s glow pass him over and does not reach for it. His mind gets further and further away from his body. His aches and the throbbing pain from his arm socket become distant and insignificant. He can only hope Preston will warn him of anyone coming. As he reaches, searching, Lapin catches a whiff of cinnamon and fire, of darkness and sweetness. He smells the Hungry One’s power, and, pushing against the wards which fall away like paper in the face of this false God’s wrath, Lapin lets himself fall into the yawning abyss. It consumes him, filling his senses with shadows and howling wind, with spices and the taste of cane sugar, with the feeling of sparks dancing like ants under his skin. But at the same time, Lapin is consuming the power right back, letting himself gorge on it as he hauls it around himself like the heaviest furs in winter. It shatters the wards keeping him from the Fairy’s magic, bypassing them completely, and Lapin has to laugh. The Church most likely never suspected that the Hungry One would desecrate this holy land and so never put precautions in place. So much the better for Lapin. 

He wraps the power around him, lets it fill his lungs, and begins to _mold_ it. His eyes crack open just in time to glimpse orange and red magic swirl between his paws and take on an almost egg-like shape. His eyelids drift closed again. This experience is strange, like when the Fairy bestowed her gifts upon Lapin but somehow more genuine. Perhaps because Lapin is taking this for himself. It fills Lapin with a weird calmness, makes his fears faint and unreal. Here, now, Lapin will never die. Here, he feels no pain. With this magic forming around him, through him, for him, Lapin is untouchable.

He comes down from this high slowly. His energy is drained; his chest heaves. He feels slightly sick, as if he has been at sea for a long time. In reality, he has not been sitting here for long. The evening light is just barely retreating. Lapin is too weak to do much at one time but his connection to the Hungry One’s magic thrums in the back of his mind anyway. Where last night he took in the Hungry One’s power and lost it as soon as he let go of _Sending_ , today it feels as if the Hungry One stays with him. He can feel it humming with untapped potential. If Lapin is not careful enough, he could lose himself to the magic and overextend his senses before he can do anything useful with it. 

When Lapin finally feels at home in his own skin again, the pain and fear and anxiety running through him again, he opens his eyes and looks down. There in his paws, as small as a thimble, is a red and gold seed. It glows softly. As Lapin clasps it to his breast, some instinct--infused with the thrum of the Hungry One within him--tells Lapin that it is not finished yet. Not yet. But soon. He need only keep working. Lapin is not entirely sure what this seed will do, but it is fueled by his desperate plea to live. It was made by his will, with the express intent to escape. Whatever it will do for him, Lapin knows it will be powerful and it will be from the Hungry One. He must keep working, but more importantly, keep this safe and secret. 

The next night Deeproot comes to him again. 

“The execution will take place at dawn in five days’ time,” he says. “Will you repent?”

Lapin clasps his salvation inside his robes. “Never, on my life.”

~

The House of Rocks has fallen.

Jet is dead. 

Ruby is going insane with rage. Amethar is drowning in guilt. Theo is trying to keep the group together with a thread and a prayer. Queen--ex-Queen Caramelinda has turned to icy silence. 

Liam is used to feeling lonely but these are new depths of sorrow he’s not sure he can save himself from, much less anyone else. Even traveling to the Great Stone Candy Mountains, his homeland, doesn’t erase the ache in his heart. Jet’s Locket of the Sweetest Heart burns against his chest and his throat closes. Saccharina Frostwhip had taken them in with open arms, obviously wishing to connect with King Amethar. Liam isn’t sure what to feel, if he should feel any kind of way about her. She’s his family, but only distantly. 

Absently, he reaches out to let Peppermint Preston calm him with a nuzzle and his chest cracks when his fingertips meet nothing but air. It’s moments like this that he understands exactly how Ruby feels. It doesn’t matter how long it takes or what lengths he has to go to--Liam is going to kill Keradin Deeproot if it’s the last thing he does. He can’t think about that now though, because Saccharina--his new Queen?--has just told them of his father’s flight from Castle Manylicks. His father might die soon. If Keradin is behind this Liam will burn Comida to the ground.

It was just a short time ago that they’d fled Comida. It feels longer. Liam sighs and does not reach for his pig again.

“Of course, I’d be willing to help you save Joren Jawbreaker and his forces,” Saccharina is saying, eyes on Liam before switching to Amethar (always back to Amethar). She gestures to Comida on her map. “But--and I know this is adding more tasks to our list--I thought you’d probably want to see what we could do for your former chancellor too. I’m not sure if we can get there in time, but we could try to figure something out?”

Liam spies Theo jolt in his seat. Amethar is rigid. Ruby sits forward suddenly from where she’s been leaning back, cool and closed off. The former Princess seems like she’s realized something, but Liam’s not sure what it could be; his own brain has shorted out. It feels like he’s the last one in the room to know what Saccharina means. He hates feeling like an idiot but it’s a familiar sensation, one usually brought on by his brothers rather than the House of Rocks.

His cousin plants her hands on the map and glares at Saccharina. “What did you just say?”

Saccharina lets out a short breath but her expression stays friendly. “Your chancellor? We’ve gotten word from some of the scouts at the border between Candia and Fructera that his execution will be...oh, Gooey I’m not sure, was it day after tomorrow?”

Gooey nods. “He’s got a day’s time. They'll kill him at dawn.”

“Our chancellor?” Liam asks. “Do--sorry, do you mean Lapin?” It can’t be. Lapin was downed before Theo even got Liam and Ruby to the windows on the balcony. Preston couldn’t save him. Amethar--Amethar said he’d seen Lapin die. There’d been blood and chocolate splattered on the windows as they ran. 

“Lapin Cadbury.” Saccharina seems to have picked up on the strange energy the family radiates, because she looks to Gooey, puzzled. Her brow furrows. “I’m sorry, I know he’s not _really_ a chancellor anymore but--”

“Lapin Cadbury is _dead._ ” Ruby stands so fast her chair tips over behind her.

“Ruby,” Amethar murmurs. He stands and puts a hand on Ruby’s shoulder but his daughter shakes him off. 

“Lapin died saving Liam and Theo and--and--how _dare_ you? How dare you desecrate his name like this? Is this some--some kind of sick _joke_ to you?”

Liam watches, his stomach flipping once, twice, three times as the long-lost sisters stare at each other. His vision is sort of tunneling and it’s getting hard to focus on anything. Lapin? Alive? About to be executed? It can’t be. There has to be some mistake--they wouldn’t have _left_ him there if he’d been alive. Amethar wouldn’t have let him die like that. 

Saccharina’s jaw works for a moment before she smiles again. “I know you’ve been on the move. That might be why you haven’t heard. But the Bulbian Church sent out a decree ten days ago that Lapin Cadbury is a heretic apostate who was captured while aiding the royal family’s unlawful escape from Comida. He’s been sentenced to death if King Amethar doesn’t show up to take his place instead.”

Her second-in-command moves forward, placing a neat scroll on the table. Gooey unfurls it and spins the parchment to face them. It is a holy decree, just as Saccharina described. A sketch of Lapin’s gaunt, severe face looks up at them, almost accusing. Liam’s cheeks feel hot. His skin feels like it’s squeezing too tight, like he might burst soon. Liam inhales swiftly and holds it. It feels like all the rest of the fresh mountain air flees the room. Ruby’s mouth has fallen open. For the first time, Caramelinda moves, rising and setting a small hand on Amethar’s elbow. Amethar jerks back as if struck in the face. He reels a few feet and Theo catches him purely by reflex, lowering the King to his seat. 

“I--I didn’t know.” Amethar mutters. “I didn’t know. If I had--”

“You couldn’t have done anything My Lord,” Theo replies, voice shattering the quiet. “We were already so far away. You wouldn’t have even had the time to return.”

But something in his words makes Amethar shudder and twist out of his knight’s grip. Betrayal crosses his face and Liam swallows thickly. He still feels like he’s on the outside looking in or like he’s part of a play he’s only read half the lines of. “You knew. When Lapin sent you that message he told you what was happening and you didn’t tell me. You _lied_ to me!”

“ _What message?_ ” Ruby shouts. “There was a message from Lapin? And no one told me? Did you know about this?” She rounds on him.

Liam shakes his head. _I’ve been with you the whole time,_ he thinks muzzily, but can’t force it from his mouth. 

Theo has retreated in on himself, standing tall and uniform like he always does when he’s uncomfortable. Liam wonders if the House of Rocks even know how easy they are to read from the outside. They probably don’t; the royal family never has to worry what others think of them--until they aren’t royal anymore. “It’s my responsibility. Lapin messaged me shortly after we arrived in Port Syrup. And--and King Amethar is right, I knew about the execution sentence. Lapin told me the Pontifex had taken him prisoner and wanted to exchange him for the King.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Amethar asks. He’s sort of folded in on himself like _he_ does when he feels lost. Liam can relate. 

“Why didn’t you tell _me?”_ Ruby gestures wildly. “Why didn’t you tell all of us? Preston died for Lapin, Theo, did you think Liam wouldn’t want to know it wasn’t in vain?”

“Lapin did not want the family to even know he’s alive. At least not until--not until it was too late. He knew you’d want to help him and he didn’t want to risk anyone else getting hurt for him.”

“But--wait, but we _are_ gonna help him, though, right?” Liam asks, suddenly finding his words. His mind is still strangely blank, but Theo’s voice pierces through the fog to the heart of things. He looks around the table, at the desecrated family of the Rocks, at Saccharina and her group, bewildered and uncomfortable, at Theo standing stiff and broken. “We’re gonna help him. We’re gonna go back, right? We have to.”

“Liam…” Caramelinda says carefully. She glances at her husband but receives no aid from that quarter. “Don’t be rash.”

“What? But--I’m not. I’m not! This is what we do. We don’t--we don’t leave people behind. We _can’t._ ”

“We must, Liam.” Theo says, quiet now. When Liam looks at him, his eyes are shut against his next words. “It’s what he wanted. Lapin knows what is at stake. He’s--he’s a true hero.”

Theo goes to say more, probably about how Lapin Cadbury will be remembered as a martyr and how he’s dying for the cause and how brave the rabbit really is, but is cut off. Ruby lets out a frustrated, wordless yell and stomps from the room. Liam follows quickly after her.

“I can’t believe them,” Ruby mutters when he catches up. “I can’t _believe_ them. They keep saying we have to be adults about this, but they don’t ever treat us like adults. We didn’t even get a choice about what to do for Lapin!”

“We can’t leave him there.” Liam agrees. But Ruby stops, nearly trips him as she turns back. Her anger recedes for a moment, regret taking its place. Her red eyes are wide and guileless, but Liam has been closest to her for so long that he can see the guilt hidden in them. “No,” he hurries on before she can speak. “No, not you too Ruby, don’t tell me you’re on their side!”

“I’m not, Liam! I’m not on their side. I’m with you, Liam, but…Look, we’re in an impossible position right now. All I can think is that we have two choices ahead of us: we can go tonight and get your father before they kill him, or we can get ourselves ready for a full assault of Comida and get Lapin before they kill _him_.”

“We can do both, it’s not like they’re happening at the same time!”

“Joren is far from the capital of Calorum, Liam. That’s why a smaller group of us can even hope to take on rescuing him. But Lapin is right where we left him in the heart of Comida. If we go to get him, we’re going to have to be ready for a full-scale battle. It’ll be the equivalent of us bringing the war to their doorstep. We’d need time to rally as many as we could and transport everyone there before the church is ready for us and...I just don’t think we can do that yet.”

Her words sound tinny in his ears, sort of far away and almost insectoid. Liam swallows bile and tells himself he won’t be sick in Saccharina’s home. This is all so messed up. He just--he just wants his best friend back, but he can’t ever get him back because Preston is _dead_ . And now no one is willing to help him save the man his best friend died for. “I can’t believe this. After everything he did for us, we’re all just supposed to let Lapin go? How--how can I? He’s there because of us and he saved me when he didn’t have to. He could have lied and let all of us die instead. Keradin was gonna _kill_ him, Ruby. Just like he killed Preston! This isn’t fair.”

“I know.” She says softly. He doesn’t shake her off when she wraps her arms around him, but his skin prickles where they touch. “He’s gone, though, Liam. And if we try to go back for him your dad is gonna be gone too. For good.”

“I’m gonna kill the Pontifex if it takes my whole life to do it.” Liam vows. Ruby leans her head on his shoulder and Liam gives up and folds his arms around her in return. They sit in silence together and breathe and it is almost enough to ease the ache in his chest. 

~

Lapin has been learning. He has been searching and growing and reaching out into the unknown. It is tiring and a long process and frustrating sometimes, but he perseveres. He must. There is simply no other option. His seed grows in size every day. Every day, Deeproot asks him to repent. Lapin refuses and clutches the seed--it looks more like an egg now--to his heart. He prays and is not sure who he is praying to anymore. 

The seed is the size of his paw, gold and red hued. It rests against his fur and warms it. The heat grows daily, too. He is not totally sure what it does, but he has an inkling it will be totally destructive. It puts a sly smile on his face. Once, Preston noses at the seed, grunts, and curls around Lapin’s ankles again. 

The week ends. Lapin is to be put to death. In the end, there is not too much fanfare. Lapin is a little offended, but he supposes with the war effort now in full swing even the Pontifex can’t spare every noble family and dignitary for his funeral.

Keradin slips shackles around Lapin’s wrists a quarter of an hour before dawn that morning. Lapin feels his connection to all magic, even the Hungry One, go dim before winking out as the iron clasps around him. It makes him shiver, bile rising, but he ignores it. More importantly, he picks up his outer robe and cape and wraps them around himself before gathering Preston’s fragile, cracked body into his arms. For a moment it looks like Keradin will not allow him this and Lapin’s mind screams in panic; he hasn’t planned how to get Preston out with him well enough. He’ll have a chance for himself with the seed, especially if he can get these chains off, but Preston is a wild card. He can’t leave the pig behind, as stupid as it sounds. He’s the only companion Lapin has had. But _Thunderstep_ is the only spell Lapin can think of to get out of there once he uses the seed, and he needs Preston within five feet for it to work. 

Keradin hesitates, mouth pressed into a thin line. His shoulders are stiff. Feeling frantic and trying to swallow it, Lapin stares him dead in the eye and tilts his head. “Will you not allow a dying old man one comfort?”

“You should have repented,” Keradin answers, but does not take Preston from him as Lapin exits his cell. It is a quiet journey through the halls of the cathedral past the pews and through the main entrance. The only thing that brings Lapin up short before they leave entirely is the newly painted teleportation circle near the main doors. There is soot on the painted lines, as if it has been recently used, and Lapin’s heart leaps before he is shoved forward again. Deeproot doesn’t want him dawdling here, then. Interesting. 

Keradin keeps a hand on his shoulder, much as he did before. The cathedral is empty this time but Lapin knows what waits for them outside, can hear the large crowd milling about. Preston pushes his short snout against Lapin’s collarbone where his robes have ripped during his time in prison and Lapin shivers again.

The light of the courtyard outside almost blinds him as the doors open. Keradin pushes him onward with strange gentleness for how firm his grip is. Lapin blinks dumbly until his vision clears. He swallows heavily. It is a testament to how weak he really is that this light is blinding--the sun is just beginning to paint the horizon pink and orange. The fresh air tastes sweet to him. It may be a perfect day if it were not for the image that greets Lapin when he opens his eyes again. There before him, at the end of a path cutting straight through swaths of Fructerian, Ceresian and Vegetanian onlookers, are the gallows. The noose sways in the early morning breeze. Preston presses harder against his chest, and Lapin folds his arms around him reflexively. His paws are covered by his robe’s sleeves, and under the fabric, he clutches at his seed. It pulses hotly against his fur. When he takes his next step, he does not shake.

It is nearly time for Lapin to be bold and brave and clever. His heart takes up lodging in his throat. He may be about to die. He may not. Either way, he plans to go out on his own terms. Lapin has had enough of living by someone else’s rules.

He mounts the steps with less difficulty than he should have and by the tightening of the fingers on his shoulder, knows Keradin has clocked it. Lapin raises his chin, defiance flowing through his veins, and stares right into Brassica’s deadly gaze. She sneers before turning to the crowd. She begins another speech, something about Candian cowardice and lack of honor and faith and some more hogwash Lapin simply has no patience to listen to anymore. He twirls the seed in his paw, preparing. It’s almost too hot to touch now. As Keradin moves him into position under the noose, like magic the true nature of this seed slips into Lapin’s mind. It is as if he has always known what it will do.

“King Amethar broke from the Church and disgraced himself and all of Candia with his crimes. Lapin Cadbury desecrated sacred Bulbian values and vows by indulging in heretic magics. Candia has much to answer for. Lapin Cadbury’s death is the first reparation the Church demands,” Belizabeth intones. She turns to give the order to the executioner as Keradin steps back to guard her flank. Those empty eyes don’t leave Lapin and he can almost see the paladin’s thoughts; he’s wondering what he missed, what is different about Lapin, how they could have slipped up. It almost makes him laugh.

He looks out onto the crowd. Plumbeline Uvano and Lord Consort Rufus Applebottom are in attendance, as well as Prince Cabbage. Strangely, Archbishop Oliver Onionpatch is nowhere to be seen, but that is of little importance now. Imperator Ciabatta sans Commander Constano Grissini is further back in the throng. Odd that he would not have his right-hand man with him, but Grissini is presumably out fighting in the war. No matter: Lapin is sure the Candians will deal with each of them in due time. For now, he straightens his spine and smirks at Brassica.

“Will you not allow a dying man his last words, Pontifex?” He asks, projecting his voice as much as he can. He wishes he could cast _Thaumaturgy_ , but this will have to do. “You, who have ordered the deaths of so many in the name of your pathetic god, will not do this?”

A gasp goes up in the crowd. Her face twists but Lapin is not done. Even as he speaks the rope is lowered around his neck, but Lapin is faster, and smarter. 

“You of the Bulbian faith are all the same. You are so wrapped in your power, so warped by your own greed, you cannot see that you give yourselves over to a false prophet. Look at the Pontifex’s actions in the coming times, you fools. Examine the Church closely. See how they grab for power. Watch as they put aside the mercy and forgiveness they preach to destroy lives and families as it pleases them. They have long waited for this opportunity, and Candia is the sacrificial lamb they slaughter to take it. They will subjugate you and demean you and denounce you if you step out of line. The Church does not love you. The Bulb does not love you. And I,” Lapin pronounces, the seed searing hot in his paw as he drops Preston and raises his last weapon aloft, “hope that you all _burn!”_

__

He lobs the seed forty feet into the crowd. It arcs high in the air, whistling as it goes. Keradin yells indistinctly. The Pontifex raises her hands in supplication as she tries to dodge. The rest of the assembly scream and jerk, already trying to run as the spell takes effect. Waves of red and gold fire spread across the sky, raining down on them as _Delayed Blast Fireball_ takes them all by surprise. Even as the first blast goes off, another is on its heels. Lapin is buffeted back by hot air. He feels his chocolate melts and blister slightly, and he is only on the edge of the blast zone. People are catching aflame. He sees one Fructeran noble, a banana, whirl by his gallows, shrieking and flailing at his blazing peel. One Vegetanian, a green onion woman, goes up in ashes. 

But there is no more time to wonder at the destruction. Lapin stumbles back, joints groaning as he jumps for the edge of the gallows. The heat of his spell has snapped the rope of his noose, singing it away, and he is untethered. He half falls from the raised platform and lands hard on his side; still, he scrambles to his feet, taking the long way around towards Keradin. He tries to be stealthy, but the air is thick now and his eyes water as he flails blindly. It is only the breeze that blows smoke to and fro, clearing it from his eyes for a moment, that helps him. His shoulder and arm scream in protest but Lapin makes it there in the end. The Pontifex huddles in her paladin’s arms as he protects her from the fires. He sees the carrot’s head swivel, looking for a way out. They are both so distracted it is easy for Lapin to slip the ring of keys from Deeproot’s belt and fade into the shadows.

Not easy enough. Keradin starts, letting the Pontifex go to reach for his mace. He whirls around and growls, searching for movement through the rising smoke that billows through the yard. Lapin becomes very, very still. Even as he does, he knows it will work. His form disappears, becoming invisible, and all Keradin will find is sparks and ash and empty space. Lapin keeps his eyes on the paladin just in case but there is no need; he howls in frustration and ducks away from the growing inferno, the Pontifex tucked safely under his arm. The rest of the nobles are fleeing. 

The shackles _thud_ into the ground at Lapin’s feet. Preston snuffles at them before squealing and rearing up to balance his front hooves on Lapin’s shins. Unthinkingly, Lapin laughs aloud and drops his invisibility to bend down and haul the tiny pig into his arms. Triumph makes him lightheaded and he does not complain as Preston presses his wet snout into his cheek. His magic flows back through him, sparking along his spine. Lapin takes in a deep breath, fresh air and wind and smoke filling his lungs. He has never felt more alive and he laughs lowly as the Pontifex and her paladin run from his spell, as chaos rages around him, as the flames leap from grass to trees to the cathedral itself. The church is old; it turns into an inferno in seconds. The spires blaze against a cloudless sky. The sun is rising now and the halo it casts upon the flaming cathedral makes the whole scene hellish.

Oh, but he never thought this might be _fun._ Still Lapin has never been one for the fight, and he has long overstayed his welcome. It is time to leave Comida. Without a clear destination in mind, Lapin holds Preston closer, raises his paw in the air and casts _Thunderstep._

In the last moment that Lapin still has sight sparks of violet edge his vision. Sugary plum scent fills his nose. He feels a familiar tug on his heartstrings as the Sugar Plum Fairy’s voice whispers in his ear. 

_“My last wish is for you to come home.”_

~

No living soul has ever stepped onto the Sweetening Path before.

It is a strange place. When Lapin opens his eyes, the last of _Thunderstep_ ’s rumbles dying under his feet, he blinks in surprise. The Sweetening Path around him is--foggy, almost, swirling mist that irritates his chocolate when it brushes against his fur. The mist is technicolor, purples and pinks and blues fading in and out. There isn’t much to see besides the mist; the Path under his feet is purple stone candy, cobbled and cool to the touch. It winds away in front of and behind him. There is no sense of what awaits Lapin in either direction. But his ears are still pricked and his fur stands up straight. Something is wrong here, and it isn’t just his own presence in a spirit realm. Something is watching him.

Feeling his prey status more keenly than ever before, Lapin looks around slowly. Preston shifts in his arms, wanting to be let go, but he tightens his grip. Every so often, a figure looms up through the mist, humanoid in stature, but disappears whenever Lapin looks directly at it. There are vague mountains on whatever counts for a horizon here. Otherwise, the mist is his only companion.

As if in defiance of Lapin’s last thought, Preston squeals impatiently and noses at him. Lapin sighs and lets the pig scramble out of his hold. He winces when a hoof catches against his bad shoulder. He reaches up, gathers a bit of the Bulb’s power, and casts _Lay On Hands_. Some of his sinews reattach. The throbbing dulls to an ache. Lapin is out of breath and sagging now, though; he won’t be able to cast much more until he rests. 

“My, my, little rabbit. You’ve learned some new tricks, haven’t you?”

The Sugar Plum Fairy’s voice emanates from everywhere around Lapin. Fear grips his soul and he whirls, staggering when his heavy, torn robes send him off balance. He might have fallen if the mist around him didn’t surge at that moment. It swirls, becoming semi-solid and supporting his back and side until Lapin regains his footing. He gasps as Preston squeals again and circles his feet. Pulling away from the mist, Lapin can see condensed sugar water clinging to him before dissipating; it takes some of his robes with it, leaving behind singed fur. This place is not habitable for the living. Lapin will do well to remember that. 

“Ah-ah. No need to worry, Lapin,” she crows. When Lapin looks up, the Fairy is there, hovering only a foot away. She is as she always appears; she floats a head taller than him, her violet, insectoid eyes glinting. Her membranous wings flicker behind her, making a strange clicking noise as she flies even closer. The Fairy reaches out to stroke the back of her hand against his cheek and Lapin jerks back. Something behind the face she wears now shifts. “Why, if I didn’t know better I’d say you were afraid of me.”

“Fairy.” He greets. He is unused to being so wrong-footed, but after everything that has happened today, Lapin is not sure he can deal with the Fairy. Worry creeps along the edges of his mind, burrowing into his brain. He tries to think clearly. “It is...good to see you.”

Her eyes sharpen, all six of them. Her form is blurry here away from reality. She seems to flicker in and out of several versions of herself. He sees one which looks like a child made out of Smarties, and another which looks like a rock candy woman with flowing black hair. Another looks like a meep with six eyes. These all fade in and out like overlays on the face which is familiar to him.

“It has been a long time, Lapin.” She says, sweet as sugar. His teeth ache. “I have missed you. Whatever have you been up to?”

Her eyes drift to his shoulder, where he had cast with Bulbian magic just moments before. Lapin swallows. One wrong move and it is over; he is in her domain now. While she might have charitably been called an ally before, now she is an unknown variable. She said just moments before that her last wish was for him to come home; if his presence here counts as his having entered her home, he is released from her bindings. It should fill Lapin with relief. He has lived his whole life in her service. But without her wishes to fulfill, he will lose the abilities he has honed from childhood. Now he has the Hungry One and the Bulb to pull magic from, it is true, but he is _on the Sweetening Path._ Neither “deity” will be as enhanced as the Sugar Plum Fairy’s magic is here. And the Fairy now knows he has access to other sources of magic. The Fairy has always been a jealous creature.

“I was captured by the Bulbian Church,” he says slowly. “The Pontifex tried to kill the King and Liam Wilhelmina. I could not allow that to happen, as per your wishes. In my attempt to save them, I was taken myself. I only managed to escape execution just now, although I’m sure you know that.”

“I caught the last part of it, yes.” Her head tilts and she smiles again. There are too many teeth in her mouth. “I could only see you when you left the interior of the church itself, although I could feel you, little rabbit. You were trying to reach me for so long. I’m sorry I couldn’t get to you until now. But you managed to find a way out yourself. It was a neat little trick.”

Before he can reply, her hand snaps out, quick as a striking viper, and clutches his injured shoulder. Lapin barely has time to grit his teeth against a shriek before a purple glow envelops her fingertips and seeps into him. The pain disappears and her hand retreats. With a roll of his shoulder, Lapin can tell she has healed every ache in his body. He is whole once again.

Preston shuffles around his feet as he regards her and she him. The Fairy spreads her arms. “But we can discuss your newfound powers some other time, can’t we? I thought first I would show you my home. Do you like it?”

“I--of course.”

“Oh, that makes me so happy, Lapin. I made it for all of Candia, after all.”

_What?_

The Sugar Plum Fairy laughs at his expression and shakes her head. “Oh, don’t look so surprised. All I have ever asked you to do was for the benefit of Candia. And my last wish was for you to come here because _you_ are part of Candia. You get to see my plan come to fruition from the best seat in the house! Aren’t you excited?”

This is what he has always hated most about her; she rarely speaks in anything but riddles. “What plan is that, exactly?”

“Oh, just to save the magic of Candia. That’s where you come in, dear. You’ve become quite the powerhouse. I needed to make sure you were safe, so I took you in with my last wish.” She reaches out again, and this time Lapin does not flinch when she cups his cheek. “You’ll always be safe with me, my brave little rabbit. Although,” and now her expression turns sly, “you really did bring along more magic than I’d expected. The Bulb _and_ the Hungry One, dear? You _are_ a greedy one. No matter: you’ll see that they aren’t half as powerful as Sweetening magic here. But enough chatter. We can discuss all of this later. You’ll have all the time in the world here! First, why don’t you say hello to an old friend, hm?”

Mind reeling, Lapin lets her fingers grip his jaw. She turns his chin gently, but there is more power in her grip than there should be. Distantly, he can hear Preston yelping excitedly. The pig tears off down the Path, heading in the direction the Fairy points him in. A figure looms out of the mist. The Fairy lets him go, giggling and giving him a little push. Preston pelts towards whoever is coming to greet them. As the figure steps on the Path, the fog clears and Lapin’s ears ring. All the breath in his body leaves him. Oh, no. _No._

No living soul has ever stepped onto the Sweetening Path before.

“What’s up, old man?” Princess Jet of the House of Rocks says. “Long time, no see.”

~

The Fairy has left them, perhaps to give them a semblance of privacy. Lapin would not put it past her to be listening in unseen, however. He still feels off-balance here, wrong and strange, like his body isn’t his own. It’s not surprising, really; he doesn’t _belong_ on this plane of existence. If Lapin had to guess, the fact he was using his own magic when the Fairy pulled him in with her Sweetening magic might have been the only thing to protect Lapin from being killed instantly. His magic mixed with hers and created a protective barrier. When he was pulled onto the Path, the magic died but Lapin lived. 

But he is only guessing.

Jet looks concerned now. They’ve been standing here for a few minutes. Lapin realizes he has not said anything. He’s staring at her still. It feels as if his extremities have gone numb. 

“You--” he coughs. His throat is dry. “How did you--what happened?”

He’d tried _so hard_ to make sure they were safe. He would have _died_ for it.

“That bastard Ciabatta had assassins waiting for us.” Jet says. She reaches out and tries to take his arm gently. “Ruby and Liam got out, don’t worry, and nobody else was there, but they stabbed me in the dark. Hey, why don’t we sit down, teach? You’re looking a little--”

As soon as her hand touches his arm Lapin jerks back with a hiss. Her touch is colder than ice and burns horribly. They both watch, stunned, as some of his chocolate melts and blackens, as if touched by fire. Jet snatches her hand away but the damage is already done; the edges of the burn look rotted and old. The smell of burnt sugar hangs in the air around them before the mist sweeps it away. After a moment Lapin gathers himself enough to pull his robe down over the wound. 

“Oh my God! Lapin, I am _so_ sorry.” Jet’s expression is distraught. She raises her hands and steps back from him. She wrings her fingers together. “I don’t know what I did. I just wanted to help.”

“It doesn't matter. As soon as I have rested I will be able to heal myself.” Lapin draws himself up. There is no time for him to focus on the pain anymore. There is much to do still. “This is necrotic damage--what we call death-rot. It likely resulted because while this is your afterlife, I am not dead and I should not be here.”

“You’re not dead?” Her voice goes up two octaves and Lapin’s ears twitch. Irritation, familiar and comforting, itches up his back. “But when we left the cathedral--Dad said he looked back and you were on the ground. Deeproot was gonna kill you!”

“The Pontifex wasn’t done being smug. They took me prisoner after you all got away and put wards up to hide me from the Sugar Plum Fairy’s influence. She wanted to trade me for your father.” A wry smile pulls at his mouth. “The joke, as you can see, was on her. I just now managed to escape.”

“How’d you do that?” She reaches up, careful not to brush his fur, and tugs at something hanging against his chest. It is only then that Lapin realizes the noose is still around his neck. The frayed end snaps in the wind blowing the mist around them. “Seems like she was pretty close to getting the job done.”

“I set the cathedral on fire.”

Jet’s mouth drops open before she grins. “You did not!”

“I did.”

“ _Lapin!”_ Jet moves as if to punch his shoulder but stops herself. She punches the air instead and crows in triumph. Despite all of this, despite his worry over the Fairy and his lingering fear from his imprisonment, despite the fact Jet is dead, Lapin grins back. “I forgot how cool you actually are!”

“Indeed. Excuse me, Princess, but I think it would be prudent to move on. We have much to discuss and little time to act.”

“What do you mean?”

Lapin hesitates. Thoughts race through his head at light speed. It is hard to be the calm, organized tutor she knows him to be; they don’t have many options and with the Fairy’s allegiance and motives still unclear, the fact is that they only have each other to trust. “The Sugar Plum Fairy--what do you know about what she’s been doing? What has she told you, or had you done after she brought you here?”

Jet bites her lip. “I’m usually watching over Ruby or my Pops or Liam. But she’s not as careful as I think she thinks she is; she’s collecting things. Not just spirits, like me or my aunts or you, I guess, if her spell to get you here had worked right. I saw some kind of lair or something, with all these magical weapons and junk. I don’t know why but she’s keeping them for herself. And--”

Her face twists. Lapin watches the familiar sight of anger shift across Jet’s expression and the knot in his stomach tightens even more. “And she’s been talking to Ruby, too. She seems like she’s comforting her, but she’s using my shadow. She’s pretending to be me! I--I don’t think this is right.”

Awkwardly, Lapin reaches out to place a paw on her shoulder, just barely stopping himself from touching her. He squeezes his paws closed together, throat closing just a little. She’s so very young. “No, I do not think it is. We’re going to have to work together to make it right, Your Highness.”

“Okay,” she replies, drawing the word out. “But how? I can’t exactly do anything since I’m dead and you’re stuck here too now.”

Lapin falls silent; she’s correct, of course. He’s out of spells, and he used the one trick he’s had up his sleeve at the cathedral only hours ago. Jet is dead. Even if she weren’t, she’s never had any magical talent, and certainly not enough to get them off of the Sweetening Path. It is up to Lapin. He needs to find a way to get back to Candia, which means travel between planes. The wind blows the mist around them, the shifting colors making his head ache. 

An insidious little part of Lapin’s brain reminds him that he doesn’t really _need_ Jet with him. She’s only a child no matter what she and her sister insist, and with his new powers he could handle himself better in a fight without the literal dead weight. She’s part of the Fairy’s domain now. Even finding a way to bring her to life will take much longer than simply slipping away when the Fairy’s attention is distracted. It will be harder to get the Fairy to let both Jet and himself go rather than just Lapin. The House of Rocks’ survival is not his responsibility anymore. 

Preston curls up on Lapin’s feet and Jet gets distracted as she crouches to grin at the pig. She doesn’t reach out to touch him, obviously afraid to hurt the pet, but she does break up some candy from her pocket and spread it out on the road. Preston _oinks_ and scarfs it up. Jet giggles, smiles bright and wide. Lapin’s heart breaks a little more than it already has. He will not leave a child in his care behind. Especially not in the hands of the Sugar Plum Fairy. But how can he hope to beat the spirit? What can he do, what spells does he know, that could save them both? He wishes for his seed of the Hungry One again. Perhaps there was another way, some way he could have saved both the seed and himself from the cathedral. 

Absently, Lapin reaches up to strip the noose from around his throat. He fingers the rope’s rough weave and thinks. It is no use planning to leave soon; Lapin will need magic to escape, and he needs to rest to access his magic. He must use healing magic he has never controlled before, stuff stronger than most clerics are capable of. Then he must find a way to escape the ethereal demiplane of the Sweetening Path. 

To return from another plane to the Material Plane is something Lapin mostly knows from theories in dusty old tomes he’s read: they say it is possible with the right magic. He remembers researching it once in his youth. He’d gotten far at the time, had written pages upon pages of notes until he realized that only clerics could access the magic he was learning of. Lapin had slammed the texts shut and never gone back; the disappointment was too fierce, the wound of his will being bound to the Fairy’s too fresh. That was decades ago now--what had that spell been? He needs to remember it if he is to be of any use to Jet beyond company. For that matter, he needs cleric magic anyway if Lapin is to raise the Princess from the dead. It is yet another avenue Lapin researched during the Ravening War only to be disappointed in his limited warlock abilities. He’s always tried to heal with the Fairy’s magic but warlock spells can only do so much; he doubts he could even have helped Jet when she died.

Lapin is not a cleric nor a paladin. He is also not a warlock anymore. Lapin is so very much more. Something long forgotten clicks in the back of his head; the spell--it was _Plane Shift_.

_You’ll lose your mind if you don’t straighten your spine._

He already feels more rested as they idle on the Sweetening Path. It is almost time to act. This situation may be even more dire than the one he just left, however; the Fairy will have eyes everywhere. She may be distracted with collecting Candia’s magic, as both she and Jet hinted at, but for how long? And can Lapin count on that being enough to keep the Fairy’s attention off of him while he reaches for any healing magic he can give to Jet? He won’t be able to use the Sweetening Path’s resources, strongest magics in this plane though they are, that much is clear. It would alert the Fairy in a second. No, he’ll have to risk using the Bulb and hope she does not catch him at it. 

A mere thought is enough to bring glowing Bulbian light to his paws. It swirls as Lapin lets himself fall deep into the Bulb’s power, as he had the Hungry One’s weeks ago. Jet will need a spell Lapin instinctively knows that he will not be able to access even with his newfound power. At least not without help. Only the most devoted and longest-lived clerics are able to cast spells to raise the dead, and even then it rarely works out well. Gods forbid he try something weak on Jet and accidentally turn her into an undead servant. No, Lapin is not what Jet needs now; she needs the pure, unadulterated magic of the Bulb itself.

A small, solid speck of light--a seed--begins to form in the center of his paw. It will take him a long while to grow this seed for Jet to use, but he needs time to research their escape method anyway. _Plane Shift_ is a powerful spell, and he will not be able to make the seed and cast _Plane Shift_ on the same day. He must be prepared, cunning and bold and brave, for this to work. 

“Lapin?”

Jet looks surprised when Lapin lifts his head to smirk at her. “Your Highness. I believe you asked how we are to leave here?”

Jet’s grin spreads slow across her cheeks. “I guess I did.”

Lapin lifts his cupped hands for her to look into as he focuses on channeling the Bulb’s energy correctly. This will be even more delicate a process than _Delayed Blast Fireball_. “I think it high time for one last lesson, Princess Jet. Observe.”

~

Jet Rocks was a princess once. Jet Rocks was going to be king. Jet Rocks was a bastard once. Jet Rocks used to hate her lessons with Chancellor Lapin Cadbury. Jet Rocks missed Lapin Cadbury when he died.

Jet Rocks is dead. Jet Rocks has watched from beyond the grave as her sister fell into rage, as her father was betrayed, as her family disintegrated. Jet Rocks apparently has a second sister, powerful and lonely, that she will never get to meet because Jet Rocks is dead. Lapin Cadbury is not a Chancellor anymore. Lapin Cadbury is supposed to be dead but isn’t. 

Lapin Cadbury always has a trick up his sleeve and Jet Rocks is desperate enough to try anything.

It’s easy for her to reach out and manipulate the plane--demiplane? Lapin had explained the difference when he whispered his plan to use _Plane Shift_ to her, but Jet honestly only understood about half of the words coming out of his mouth--to give them somewhere to sit. The dead have some kind of power here, she guesses; it’s not exactly what she thinks magic is like. She doesn’t need to know spells or focus any energy on it, she just thinks about what she would like to happen and most of the time, it does. (Jet still can’t crack how to think “I’d like to be alive now, please” and get it to work, but beggars can’t be choosers.) 

She settles on waving away some of the mist to reveal a small peppermint gazebo beside the road. Lapin sits on the bench and immediately slips into some kind of meditation, Preston happily snuffling along under his feet. Jet takes her post leaning against the entrance of the gazebo and pretends she can see more than indistinct shapes in the fog. If the Fairy appears and decides Lapin is too much of a liability, they’re done for, but Jet doubts she will. Besides greeting her and then Lapin when he got here, Jet hasn’t interacted with the Fairy much. Might be because the spirit is a snob; Jet figures she’d favor magical beings over null people like Jet. 

The idea chafed at her in the beginning. She hates being ignored, even if it has given her more time to watch over her family. Now though, with how fearful and open Lapin’s expression had been when he told her they’d have to keep his magical experiment a secret, she thinks she might have been overlooking an unexpected gift. The rabbit has always been a fan of anonymity. Jet’s never seen the appeal before, but then she’s never had an all powerful being breathing down her neck. She can’t say she enjoys the feeling.

Her skin prickles. Yeah, the grass is definitely greener on the other side. 

There isn’t much help she can offer him right now; Lapin sits with his paws clasped together, light shining through his fur. He must concentrate. Time is weird here, without the need to eat and sleep and no discernible day-night cycle. It may have been hours or possibly days since he has spoken. He has moved little, never opening his eyes. She can’t really tell what he’s doing, or if his plan--whatever it is, he's so secretive all the time--is working. But he hasn’t stopped trying and he said he’d take her with him when he escapes, and that’s enough for Jet.

She’s on lookout. She’d be watching Lapin’s back now even if he hadn’t asked her to, but it is--nice, to know he thinks her capable of protecting him. Or, you know, at least able to give him a second’s warning before the Fairy kills them both. Still, it soothes Jet’s jangling nerves to have something to do. Of course, it _is_ pretty boring just staring out into space. She almost misses Lapin’s droning about old history texts. Almost. 

Rococoa’s spirit told her that she’d be of use to her family somehow, some way, after she died. But that was a _lie._ The afterlife is not horrifying or restful. It simply is. Jet can’t speak to others or affect the world outside this plane. The only real thing she’s been able to do was send Princess to Theo, and that had nearly sent her mother over the edge of grief. She’s not alone anymore, it’s true, but she’s not magical and she can’t seriously fight the Fairy if she comes for Lapin. Jet has no options here; she’s only pretending she does.

So Jet does what she always does when she’s uncomfortable; she distracts herself. It’s second nature to close her eyes and check in on Ruby.

~

The Sugar Plum Fairy could not bring Jet to Ruby, but she could bring Ruby to Jet. Saccharina Frostwhip wants to go loot the Sugar Plum Fairy’s temple. It is almost funny, the idea that the woman Ruby hates with all the fire in her heart is the one person pushing her towards reuniting with her twin.

Ruby remembers that icy, sweet little voice in her head-- _I eagerly await your arrival--_ and suppresses a shiver. This is the only way to get to Jet. She has to do this.

Of course, the Ice Cream Temple will have the added bonus of armor and weaponry for the true citizens of Candia to use to protect their country’s borders. Ruby might be on a warpath--rage building in her chest with each passing day, her sight bleeding red, hands trembling around Sourscratch--but she cares about Candia. She needs her home to be safe again. The Pontifex is waging a holy war on Ruby’s people; Cruller is asking to be baptized into the Bulbian Church, leaving their countrymen to die. Ciabatta, the bastard, is invading her country; Plumbaline wants to rule the entire Concord. Candia is on the brink of death and Ruby’s sister is dead when their forces need a warrior most of all.

The monastery of the Order of the Spinning Star is drafty. She shivers again and pulls her doublet closer around her. Ruby has taken to wandering the halls alone these days; Liam comes with, sometimes, but it’s hard between them too. She loves him, and she knows he loves her, but they’re both being torn to bits by grief. Ruby can barely keep her head above water most days, especially if Saccharina is in the mix, and so she cannot help her cousin as he sinks deeper without his best friend. To think, just weeks ago, she was running through Dulcington, laughing as Jet smashed royal insignias with her banned books--

Ruby shakes her head sharply and turns from the window she’d been staring out of sightlessly. Thoughts of Jet consume her but they won’t do any good now. She told Cumulous the truth: she lives for revenge. She’s not sure who she’s going to be without it once the war is won. She’s not sure who Liam will be. She’s not sure she knows her father anymore, or if she ever really knew her mother. Everything is falling apart, and no one seems willing to or capable of fixing it.

But Saccharina Frostwhip can get Ruby Rocks to the Sugar Plum Fairy and the Sugar Plum Fairy can get Ruby Rocks to Jet. 

_What if the Fairy wants you to turn on them?_ A small voice in the back of her head asks. Her throat closes. _Will you do it? Will you betray them all for a chance of seeing Jet?_

How strong is the Fairy, anyway? If she couldn’t bring Ruby’s sister back right after Jet died, how would she be able to all these weeks later in her temple? What if this is all a _lie_?

But Ruby has nothing else. She turns and begins the trek back to her party; they’re going to go over their plan to get to the temple soon. Everyone is coming. Saccharina will probably take her second in command. Ruby wonders if she feels she needs protection when she’s with the House of Rocks. She wonders if Saccharina _does_ need protection from them. Something hot and angry and horrible curls in her gut when she considers it. Maybe Saccharina has the right idea.

Liam falls into step with Ruby as she rounds a corner towards the strategy room Snicker Snack set up for them. He bumps their shoulders together once but doesn’t open his mouth. The quiet presses in on Ruby’s eardrums, ringing. Jet used to talk so much her ears were always full of her voice.

In twinspeak, Ruby blurts, “I’m just so angry all the time, Liam.” She can’t help it. It feels like lava welling up in her chest, pouring up her throat, choking her. But the worst times are when it turns to ice in her veins, makes her able to do terrible things to her enemies or spit horrific words at her family without feeling a thing. It makes her numb. 

She feels Liam’s eyes on the side of her face. Her cheeks feel hot and so do her eyes; Ruby promises herself she won’t cry. “Yeah.” Liam says after a time, soft. There’s an undercurrent to everything he does now, one that matches the lethality Ruby recognizes in her own movements. “Me too.”

Then Ruby remembers. It happened yesterday, didn’t it? “I’m sorry. It’s happened. Lapin is…”

“Lapin is dead.” He sounds hollow. All the more space to store that murderous intent. “He’s dead. Would've died early yesterday morning. They probably did it right outside that cathedral. Made it dramatic. All I can think about is if Deeproot was there, if he went back to watch. To finish the job after he killed Preston.”

“Your father is still here because we didn’t go back for him, Liam. If we didn’t get to Joren he would’ve gone the same way as Lapin.” Liam doesn’t respond as she reiterates the points she made to get him to agree to it the first time. When Ruby risks a quick glance at him, she sees the hard line of Liam’s jaw tightening. It makes something close to annoyance spring to her chest. “You didn’t even _like_ Lapin anyway! Why is this so important to you?”

The words are vitriolic and scald her tongue on the way out. She regrets them instantly, but that isn’t enough to stop him from turning to her, eyes sparking. His fists curl at his sides. When they were still children, so long ago, he used to hug himself when he was scared or upset. It gave half the court a soft spot for him. She’d watched him put three arrows into a man’s skull without blinking just weeks ago. “It means something because I want it to mean something, Ruby. Because Lapin had secrets upon secrets and he gave all that up--and why?”

“Liam…”

“To help _me!_ He could’ve left--I read some of the books Saccharina has, they’re about warlocks. He could’ve disappeared and never gotten hit in that fight, but he came to help me instead. He died saving me, and my best friend died saving him. And I--I--”

“Liam.”

“I hate him for that. I _hate_ him. When Lapin left he took Preston with him and I hate him and I hate that I can’t hate Lapin because it was my choice to send Preston down. I sent my best friend to death, do you understand that?”

“ _Yes!”_ Ruby screams. It echoes in the hallways, reverberates in her bones. Her eyes have welled up without her permission. “Yes, I know exactly what that’s like, or did you forget whose idea it was to go to that shop and look in the attic that night?”

Silence, suffocating.

“We all agreed to go, Ruby.” Some of Liam’s fire seems to go out. He reaches out but Ruby shakes off the soft palm on her forearm. She wishes she could punch something but the walls here are all stone and she doesn’t feel like breaking bones before they face the Sugar Plum Fairy. She can’t be on the sidelines when they fight the church and Cruller and Ciabatta and Uvano. She must be ready for whatever Saccharina has planned.

“It was my idea. Just like it was your idea to use magic and get arrested and then send Preston to help when Lapin was dying for you. How is this any different from your choice? The only difference is that you know magic is banned and I didn’t know Ciabatta was waiting for us.”

“It _is_ a big difference, Ruby. I knew Preston could die. I knew I was going to be in trouble when I cast during the tourney. You were trying to help yourself and me and Jet feel better. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

Ruby rubs at the skin under her eyes and curses herself. She sniffles, then draws herself up. Dignity is noble. “There’s nothing wrong with wanting to keep your family safe, either. I know that’s what you were doing for my Pops, that day. I never thanked you for it.”

Deflated, Liam presses his mouth into a thin line and wipes his own eyes. “You don’t have to thank me for anything, Ruby. Never. Let’s just-- let’s go figure out what’s happening with the Sugar Plum Fairy.”

Ruby doesn’t reach out to him like she would have before. She doesn’t try to hug Liam or keep talking or even touch her cousin at all. She lets him take a few strides before she falls into step with him. Thoughts whirl through her head as they walk. The Sugar Plum Fairy can bring Ruby to Jet. Saccharina Frostwhip can bring Ruby to the Sugar Plum Fairy. Ruby Rocks isn’t sure what lengths she’d go to to make sure her family is safe again.

~

_The magic of the Sweetening Path is derived from the Bulb._

Lapin wakes from his meditation with a harsh gasp stuck in his throat. He lurches forward and bobbles his Bulbian seed before steadying himself. He almost topples off the bench he is seated upon. His vision is wavery, clearing slowly as he blinks in the brilliant, purely magical light of this realm. Preston jumps into Lapin’s lap, pressing his snout against the fur of his cheek and squealing concernedly. Jet’s boots crunch on the gravel outside her gazebo loudly as she straightens and rushes to his side. 

Lapin glances up in time to catch her checking herself to keep from gripping his shoulder. The smile he sends her feels weak on his face. “I’m all right, Princess. I…”

Lapin is _reeling._ He looks down at the egg in his paws; it swells with Bulbian magic, pulsing gently against his fur. Unlike the seed he used to escape the Pontifex, this one smells of good, rich earth and soothes his nerves. It is not meant for destruction. And yet, somehow, it has destroyed his entire world view.

“Lapin? What happened?”

Lapin swallows dryly. “I have discovered something-- _fundamental_.”

Jet shifts on her feet. “I don’t know what that means.”

“No, you wouldn’t. Princess Jet, I know you are not magically inclined, but what I am going to tell you is not just intricate magical theory, but theological truth none but the two of us have grasped yet. Do you understand?”

What he means is, are _you ready?_

“Just tell me.” What she means is, _always._

Lapin folds his paws into his sleeves, concealing his seed. He straightens his spine and finds no small comfort in slipping back into his tutor persona. For all that she has taken from him, Lapin cannot help but be a tiny bit grateful the Fairy sent him to the House of Rocks. He buries the thought before it can make his eyes burn. “Most of Calorum and its theologists have agreed that each of the gods and spirits have their own magic, to be used and bestowed at their will. Of course, with the church’s influence, the Bulb and the Hungry One have been accepted as the most powerful sources of magic. But each country has had spirits or smaller gods they attribute some form of magic to; for example, all of this is the Sweetening Path, which we attribute the Candia’s spirits and more specifically the Sugar Plum Fairy.”

“Yeah, okay, but I knew all that already. It’s--it’s all stuff we learned from you years ago. I know the Fairy is, like, a smaller god or whatever--”

“That is where you are mistaken.” Lapin holds up one paw to stop her. A look of annoyance flits across her face, familiar as ever. Lapin smiles slightly. “Do not think I am berating you for things you do not know, Princess. On the contrary, your mistake is only based on misinformation I, and all of Candia, have swallowed all this time. The Sugar Plum Fairy is not a god. She, like me and the Pontifex and even Sir Deeproot, draws her power from the Bulb.”

Jet stiffens. Lapin watches as the gears turn in her head, as the tendons in her neck stand out and she clenches her jaw. She nearly chews on the new information. “But--so--so the Sweetening Path is just, what? Made of the Bulb?”

“With a certain Candian twist, yes.”

Jet doesn’t smile back. “How? How does the Fairy use the Bulb when wielders of Bulbian magic are against Candian magic? If it’s all the same, how could no one know?”

He heaves a sigh. These are all very, very good questions. If only she could have been this engaged when he was still her teacher. “As for your second question, I believe it is simply because no one ever cared to find out that Candian magic matches Bulbian. For your first question, I have a much longer theory.”

Jet jerks her head for him to continue. 

“The Fairy has realized what I did when we were in the cathedral. It is likely she knew already, I’m not sure, but the end result is the same. She knows, as I do, that the Bulb is not sentient; it is simply a power source, a battery, to be used by anyone who can harness it. The same goes for the Hungry One; it is not knowledgeable, nor does it have emotions. The Bulb is a force of creation, and so the Fairy can use it to create her own magic and the realm of the Sweetening Path. The Hungry One is a force of destruction, and so those like the Order of the Spinning Star can harness it to use on the battlefield. I had thought, when I used the Hungry One to escape and when I harnessed the Bulb’s power to heal myself, that I might have been--making new pacts with more patrons, or that I simply was accessing three sources of power, from the Bulb, the Hungry One and the Sweetening Path, all at once. But it was even simpler than that.”

Jet’s eyes are as sharp and focused as they usually are in battle. “If the Sweetening Path is another flavor of the Bulb, and the Fairy gave you access to Sweetening Path magic… Then you could just tap directly into the Bulb and the Hungry One. And if they’re opposites, then they’re, what? Like a--a--a cycle, right? Two sides of the same coin?”

“And here I’d thought you were a bad student.” Lapin quips, if only to see her shoulders lose some tension. “You are exactly correct, Princess Jet. One destroys, one creates, and I--I suppose I found the balance point between them. I only just realized it when I looked deeper into the source of the Sweetening Path’s power.”

There’s silence for a moment. Lapin takes the time to breathe deeply; it is still hard on him to create the egg. The spell he is readying is too powerful to complete all at once. A list is hovering in the back of his mind: get Jet back to life. Create _Plane Shift_. Figure out where to land them both when they arrive back in Candia. Get to the others. Save Candia. 

Easy stuff.

“I cannot believe,” Jet says slowly, “that you were so cool and never said _anything_.”

It startles a laugh out of Lapin. He feels his ribs shift with it, feels the way he’s able to suck in air that doesn’t hurt his lungs anymore. He wishes he could set a paw on her shoulder. “Well, that would’ve ruined the surprise, wouldn’t it?”

~

Lapin thinks he should have known it was going too well before the Fairy appears to them again. As time passed, he’d grown wary, and he had reached into the Hungry One’s yawning void. The magic he had pulled out of himself wrapped around his seed; if he does not look directly at it, concentrating hard, it is as if it is simply not there. But Lapin is not a minor god, and as the purple sparks that herald her arrival descend at the entrance of the gazebo, he rises to his feet with his heart in his throat. He stows the seed away in his sleeve, a tried-and-true method of secrecy, but the Sugar Plum Fairy is much more than Belizabeth Brassica ever could be. This will be a true test of his magical abilities, and if he fails, he and Jet will be left with nothing. (The seed is almost finished--Lapin can sense it, knows it the way he knew that his _Delayed Blast Fireball_ was ready before his execution. His connection to the Bulb has only grown over time, as it did with the Hungry One, and Lapin feels only a fraction of doubt; he is not what he used to be but at this point it feels like he’s becoming something so much _more._ )

Jet jerks up from her seat beside Lapin as the Fairy steps into being before them. Preston nudges up against his ankles and snorts as the stench of sugar plum pervades the area. Jet’s hand goes to her waist, where Flickerish would have been, and Lapin puts out a paw to her. He barely brushes her sleeve before drawing back with a hiss.

“A bit too hasty there, my little bunny-rabbit,” The Fairy sings. Her six eyes blink at him, her head tilts. Her face is that of a dragonfly, not made to hold humanizing expressions; and yet, the smile on her lips is much too wide. “You have been pushing boundaries so much you’ve forgotten yourself. No mortal magic wielder is powerful enough to fight the presence of death-rot.”

_Death-rot._ Necromancy. The seed burns at him under his robes. _Does she know?_

“I’ve noticed my continued survival is a bit of a...” Lapin pauses, searching. His mouth is dry. “Detriment, here on the Sweetening Path.”

Her smile splits the skin of her cheeks. There is something behind the Fairy’s face Lapin does not wish to see. Overcome with the same urge that made him push Liam aside all that time ago, Lapin shifts subtly in front of Princess Jet. She growls lowly over his shoulder and sidesteps to keep her eyes on the Sugar Plum Fairy. The stupid, noble girl. 

“You never really were meant to survive the trip,” the Fairy admits. “But you’re simply full of surprises, Lapin.”

“You would have killed me with your last wish, then?”

“My last wish was to make sure you’re safe, darling!” She lifts off of the steps of the gazebo, fluttering in the air. Her movements make the mist surrounding them swirl in strange, unknowable shapes. The air buffeted by her wings is stinging cold. “This is where you’re safe. I told you, I made this place to keep all of Candia’s magic from being destroyed.”

“You’ve been collecting Candian magic for a long time.”

“Like a dragon,” Jet mutters. She never blinks as she follows the Fairy’s movements. Stupid, noble, intelligent girl. If they don’t watch what they say Lapin will never be able to save her. They are part of her horde, and so the Fairy probably believes herself well within her rights to break them at her leisure. 

_Just like a dragon._

The Fairy does not deign to answer that; she smiles instead, attention caught by the dead Princess of Candia. Lapin cannot step in front of her without being obvious. He feels the edges of his being begin to turn invisible with how still he holds, his latent magic responding to his need to hide. He forces it away with Herculean effort.

“If I hadn’t been using magic when you collected me,” Lapin says carefully, “I would have died.”

“But you would have been _safe_.”

Lapin feels as if he is perhaps seeing her for the first time as he meets the (not a) Fairy’s eyes. Her otherworldliness does not seem disturbing now so much as _pathetic_. She is lonely, and afraid of losing her power, and she wants company in this paradise she would turn into a prison to get what she wants. She cannot understand mortals no more than mortals can understand her. And what’s more is that she is not fae, ethereal and deceptive though she is. She is celestial. She gains her power from the Bulb.

Two can play at that game. 

When he does not respond, she floats closer. Her head nearly brushes against the roof, but she does not seem to mind. Her limbs seem to stretch to unthinkable proportions within the compacted space, her neck elongated grossly. Unlike when Jet touched him, her palm on his cheek does not rot him away. “Speaking of collecting magics,” she says, sly and coy, “you’re a regular little collector now, too, aren’t you? Have you learned anything interesting about Calorum’s magic, dear?”

At his core Lapin has always been a liar. Some rules he has learned from politics in his years at court: never let them see you sweat. Never give more than you’re receiving. A good lie is always rooted in the truth. Be sure you know what the people you lie to want to hear.

“I was afraid,” Lapin tells the Fairy. Beside them, Jet shifts, rigid and seething. _Hold,_ Lapin _Sends_ to her, a swirl of the Hungry One’s magic in his gut. _Hold. We must live to fight another day, Princess._ “I opened myself up to any magic I could find when the Bulbians had me. I did not want to die; I never stopped to examine the properties of the magic I used.”

_She’s going to hurt you!_ Jet answers, desperate, and Lapin barely flicks his paw in her direction. He hopes the pacifying gesture is enough to get the Princess to listen to him for once. 

Then the Fairy is upon him.

The Fairy’s hand, so soft and pliant on his fur, suddenly turns to claws against his face. A nail as sharp and serrated as a dagger hovers just on the edge of his vision, millimeters from his eye. Lapin holds very, very still. His inherent invisibility creeps up his limbs. Jet lets out a muffled curse, starts to surge forward, and subsides as she checks herself; there’s no way for her to help without hurting Lapin. Preston is squealing at their feet.

“One might think you are greedy for taking so much more than I’ve already given you, my bunny. Especially after you failed to bring the House of Rocks to the Great Stone Candy Mountains like I asked. What would you say to that?”

His fur scraps off under her touch; even the skin of her palm is made of tiny blades. He feels his blood and chocolate begin to melt and seep under her touch and wonders if she will call flame to her fingertips. Lapin’s mind is oddly clear. He knows how to hide his own fear, has been doing it so well for so long that he cannot help but see it in her. She needs to know if he is still hers. She needs to know if he knows what she is: a fraud, wielding the Bulb for her own wishes just like the church. 

“I tried to die for the House of Rocks. They needed to survive if they were to ever fulfill your wish to see them in the mountains.” _Hold. Hold._ “I could not help them from afar, it is true, but I made sure that the first thing I did with my new magic was extract a promise from Candia not to come back for me. I endeavored to keep myself from being a distraction for the House of Rocks on their journey to you.”

Her nails do not retreat, but they do not descend. Jet growls again.

“I tried and I failed to please you, my lady.” Lapin lowers his eyes. The sign of deference curdles his stomach, but Lapin has made it too far to be killed by this liar. “But I was faithful to you. I wanted to reach you but could not, and so I collected magics from any source I could. I thought my survival, my newfound power, may please you.”

When he flicks his gaze back up to her face, the Sugar Plum Fairy, insectoid, unearthly, beautiful and disgusting, looks for the barest moment off-kilter. “Oh?”

“After all, if you have worked so very hard to collect Candia’s magic, Fairy, would not trophies from the Bulb and the Hungry One round out your collection nicely?”

The air between them wavers, electric. Lapin does not try to pull away. Out of the corner of his eye he sees Jet start to open her mouth, start to reach for a sword that isn’t there, start to move--

The Sugar Plum Fairy releases him suddenly, smoothing her hands down his shoulders and pressing wrinkles out of his robes. With a click of her fingers, blood and scorch marks disappear from his clothes. The Fairy’s smile never leaves her face. “My sweet Chancellor,” she simpers, backing away from their gazebo, “you always were so thoughtful. But I can be thoughtful too. In just a few days I’ll bring your family to you, Princess, and you’ll all be safe here with me. Forever.”

She disappears as quickly as she came, and Lapin feels no shame in slumping in his seat. The seed is secure, warm and pulsing, in his sleeve. The Fairy was so preoccupied with herself she never even noticed it.

~

More than magic or devout faith, Lapin’s time with the Sugar Plum Fairy has taught him the art of deception. Still waters do not just run deep--they hide what lurks underneath the surface. So when the Fairy leaves, Lapin knows not to get too comfortable. That does not mean it isn’t tempting. This foggy nowhere between planes is soothing in an otherworldly sort of fashion and it is easy to lose track of things here. Time, thoughts, tasks; they all slip away like sand in the breeze if he is not careful. But Lapin cannot shake the bone-deep worry, the prickle at the back of his neck that tells him he has little time and fewer tricks left before his demise. It is an effective motivator, and Lapin redoubles his efforts with _Plane Shift_.

Jet furrows her brow when he asks her to create books and scrolls. “I'm not really sure I can do that. I’m sorry, but I think this place lives on memories or dreams. And I’ve never read or dreamed about spellcraft, so…”

Frustration clogs his throat, but Lapin makes a mighty effort to let it go. He subsides for a time, wraps himself in the finishing touches for the seed--the size of his paw and a comforting weight, glowing brightly--and broods. She is right, after all. It isn’t Jet’s fault she was born without magical talent, and even if she had been, _Plane Shift_ is a secret spell few have laid eyes on and fewer still have cast. He can’t expect her to remember ancient Candian magic when she’s only eighteen.

_Memories…_

Words of the Sugar Plum Fairy come rushing back to him; _my collection,_ she’d said. _The magic of Candia_. The Sweetening Path is old, obviously, and ingrained into the history of Candia. Magic wielders across generations used the power of this realm to cast. How much of that magic has she stored here? Where? And just how much could help them if Lapin manages to get his paws on it?

_Where? Where? What place is the best to hide it from me? She’s suspicious of my motives--she’d put it out of my reach--_

Of course. The mist. The only place Lapin can’t go on pain of death-rot.

The Fairy has underestimated just how desperate Lapin really is.

Lapin has been wielding Candian magic since before he could properly read, so it is no trouble to reach out and snatch the threads of it weaving this plane together. It is simply the matter of sorting it once he catches hold. It rolls over his senses in waves, threatening to overwhelm Lapin. It might have been a bit overzealous of him to throw his consciousness into this without forethought. But he digs in his heels; his mind claws like fishhooks into the magics, old as the Candian throne, old as the Fairy, older still. They push against his very being. It is a colorful swirl that invades his mind as soon as he opens it to the possibility. His head pounds, his skull feels overstuffed, and still the magic flows in. 

He must cry out or jerk in his seat because he can hear Jet’s worried voice and feel the weight of Preston jump up into his lap. But the rabbit is far from them; their voices are tinny in his ears, swarming gnats under the magnified scream of old magic. Lapin is astonished he wasn’t completely knocked out by this presence of concentrated magical memories when he first got here. He’s spent so long in the realm already--how could he not have noticed this until he looked for it? Then again, he is alive and this realm responds more to the dead. Coupled with the fact that pure Bulbian energy immersed Lapin the moment he got here, it may be reasonable to assume his distraction prevented him from sensing the tremendous powerhouse around him. Still, he feels as though he has been blind and is only now seeing light for the first time. Stupid rabbit--he’d thought himself more careful than this. 

The thought sparks an idea though, and as he grits himself against the onslaught, Lapin pulls his seed out of his sleeve and presses it to his chest. The comforting, bright magic thrums against him. Lapin can feel it skittering across the surface of his mind. The Candian magic attacking his senses is rebuffed slightly, wavering under the purity of the Bulb’s magic; Lapin can feel it still lurking at the edges, like a great cat poised to pounce. It won’t get the chance. The seed is a concentration of healing energy and Lapin has been formulating it for some time now--it is the perfect shield against corrupting Candian magic. 

“Ah,” Lapin murmurs, something like hope building within him. Without truly seeing, he slips to his feet--pausing to let Peppermint Preston scrabble out of the way--and steps out of Jet’s gazebo. “Perhaps you have helped me after all, Princess.”

“What? But I’m just standing here--”

Lapin reaches into the mist, pulling at everything Candian and ancient and powerful he can grasp at, and is gone before she finishes her sentence. The mist responds to his sudden shift into its space by eating away at any parts it can reach. Within seconds, pain laces through him as skin and chocolate and fur are stripped away. It is a strange mix between burning and freezing that Lapin feels; but something else, deeper, tugs at him as the mist attacks. The rotting fog swirls around him, blurring his vision, gouging at his face. But Lapin smiles, elated, because _he tastes good._ He knows it. It is even harder to hang onto the magics that bombard his mind here, with an outer attack on his body to deal with, but Lapin digs in, gripping fast as he feels the magics begin to slip away. 

He presses on, wandering blindly. He wades through the fog; he might be screaming, but ringing silence pervades his hearing and so he cannot be sure. The seed’s light brightens, dims, and brightens again as the Bulb’s power attempts to rebuff the worst of the attack. He _has_ to do this. He cannot let go. If he can find the source of this magical signal, if he can follow it back to the memories the Fairy has stolen--

Lapin needn’t even finish the thought because as suddenly as Candia’s magic invaded him, ripping at his very soul, it recedes. It is still there, but as he steps further, reaching, clawing, hungering, it does not hurt. Lapin stumbles as the fog reduces and trips over a threshold at his feet. As he rights himself, Lapin realizes he is no longer on the Sweetening Path. He has moved further in, further on maybe, and he is nowhere any living thing should be.

A great stone candy temple surrounds him. As Lapin looks around, blocks of candy stone rip away from the roof and walls, hurtling into the blank space the temple resides in. There is no doorway set in the wall behind him when he turns to look; this place simply sprang into being around him as he searched. Shelves and cabinets and tables surround him, laden with magical items: scrolls, books, mirrors. He sees shields and weaponry piled in corners, and suits of ancient armor line one wall, over which hang tapestries depicting historic scenes Lapin has only read of. All of them glow with Candian magic. All of them have been taken from his homeland by the Fairy, hoarded like the dragon Jet recognized her as. All of them are here for Lapin to study.

Something swells in him, an emotion Lapin is not sure he has ever felt. It is beyond hope or despair or anger or joy. It is the _knowledge_ , the pure surety, that Lapin is the last living being who will ever touch these memories. These are pieces of his home, a home Lapin has been longing for for months one end. This is the closest to Candia he has been in a long, long time, and soon the Sugar Plum Fairy will rip this away from him too. But Lapin has been bold and brave and quick and clever and so, so _angry_ for so long. He is done being helpless. He will not let this go without a fight.

Lapin moves quickly to a table of scrolls. He tries to be careful as he rifles through them, tries to hold as much information in his mind as he can while he looks through pages of old parchment. A refined way to use _Lay On Hands_ , schematics for enchanted armor, old legends of the Sweetening Path’s spirits. Tales of a dragon spirit that will come in Candia’s greatest moment of need--oh, how much Lapin wishes that could be true--and finally, what he is looking for. An old spellbook with ragged edges and stained pages. Leatherbound, it takes all the strength in Lapin’s limbs to heave it open. It’s too long for him to read it all--he has spent too long here already. Even without the death-rot attacking him, there is no telling how much the Fairy can sense wherever she is; she might be coming here even now, intent on catching him red-handed. 

Lapin reaches out, laying his paws on the pages to begin turning through, desperation making him shake--and the book shoots out of his grasp. Lapin lets out a low, shocked sound as the book slams to the surface of the table he stands before. The cover flies open, the pages turning on their own, faster, faster, faster. The parchment nearly rips apart with how quickly the book moves, the words blurring before his eyes. Then, as quickly as it happened, the book falls still, and there, old runes lining the margins, is _Plane Shift._

__

Shaking slightly, breath caught under his ribs, Lapin reaches out and caresses the edge of the parchment. It is warm, alive, under his touch. It is their salvation--

Violet sparks begin to shower the edges of the room. She is coming.

Lapin takes the spell and _runs_.

~

Lapin stumbles onto the steps of the gazebo, taking great whooping breaths. The air sucks into his lungs too quickly, choking him, and Lapin coughs violently, half falling as he surges forward. Without thought, he reaches out to take Jet’s steadying hand when she lurches towards him. Before he can even register the pain her touch brings, the Princess pulls him upright and shoves him backward onto the bench behind him. The chocolate of his right paw singes and crumbles slightly and Lapin automatically uses _Healing Word_ . The pain recedes, but it was of little importance anyway--he’d hardly felt it to begin with. In his other paw, _Plane Shift_ crumples slightly within his tight grip. The seed radiates gentle warmth inside his robes.

“Lapin! What’s going on? You were gone for a really long time! I thought you might have died out there, that was such a stupid thing to do--”

“You were right about this place being built of memories, Princess,” he answers before she can finish. “Including the memories of those clerics who first perfected _Plane Shift._ ”

Jet’s eyes widen. “Oh _shit._ Is that--does that mean--”

“I hope you are ready to leave soon,” Lapin tells her. Something soothing presses into his words and he can practically see her bravado returning, that foolish bravery straightening her spine and squaring her shoulders. “We will not be returning.”

“You just get on with casting your spells old man,” Jet replies, teeth sharp and gleaming in the misty air, “I’ll handle the rest.”

“The Fairy will not be best pleased with us, especially if my attempt to revive you succeeds, you understand.”

“Well tough shit for her, ‘cause I haven't been best pleased with her since I _got_ here.”

“Indeed,” Lapin remarks dryly, and unfolds the spellwork before him, hope bubbling in his heart.

~

The storm is upon them before they know it. The mist swirls, lights and figures swarming the edges of Lapin’s vision; gales of wind buffet the sides of the building and every brush of the fog feels like fingers tearing at Lapin’s fur. Jet yelps and ushers Preston back behind her, taking up a defensive position in the entryway. A knot twists in his gut and Lapin throws his mind out into the well of Bulbian magic he’s been storing and at the same time tugs at his connection to the Hungry One, wrapping it around him and pouring it into _Plane Shift_. It’s only a matter of time now, but Lapin isn’t too sure they have enough of that. He’ll have to risk mixing the two.

Light flashes, purple sparks and lightning crackling in the air as The Sugar Plum Fairy arrives. Lapin stumbles to his feet, _Plane Shift_ forgotten at the Fairy’s entrance; it is only when he feels the wind tug the parchment from his paws, the page whipping away into darkness, that Lapin curses himself. He must hold onto his casting at all costs now--they only have this one shot. As he surveys the scene, his hope dies an ashy death in his mouth. He is just in time to see Jet thrown aside, the Fairy displaying a careless sort of strength as the Princess ragdolls in her grip. Jet’s back slams into one of the gazebo’s posts and she lets out a weak cry as she slumps. Lapin’s own wordless shout tears from his chest at the sight, but he’s hardly on his feet before the Fairy’s claws wrap around his throat. 

“ _What are you planning?_ ” She hisses in his face, inches from him. Her face flickers before his eyes, changing rapidly; insectoid, Candian, animalistic, angelic, demonic. Her breath freezes the fur under his eyes, like ice burning through him. Her nails tear further into his chocolate, crushing his windpipe. Lapin gags but does not struggle; he can only hold onto _Plane Shift_ now and hope he can catch hold of Jet long enough to get them away. He doesn’t have the ability to fight the Fairy in such close quarters, and never alone. Strength seeps from his limbs as her grip grows tighter. “ _What did you take from me?_ ”

Lies try to form in his mind, but they slip away before he can speak them. He can feel the Fairy’s influence trying to worm its way into his mind and he clamps down, his weakening connection to the Bulb buffeting her back. If she gains control of him, this will all be over. Instinctively, he reaches for his seed but the Sugar Plum Fairy catches his arm with her other hand, twisting his wrist in her grip. Bone shatters with a sharp _crack_ and Lapin screams, throat scraped raw. 

Even so, he wonders. Lapin should be dead by now; it would be so easy for her to kill him, to kill them both. They are nothing to her, like ants under her boots. So why only use half her power? Why not just have done with it--

Then her gaze shifts to something beyond him, beyond the Sweetening Path. He can see the light in her gaze shift to an icy blue; she is looking into another realm, even as he fights in her grasp. From the way her head cocks, face twisting, she doesn’t like what she sees. “I can’t see you,” she whispers, not to Lapin. “But I know you’re here.”

The Fairy is being distracted. Knowing the House of Rocks, Lapin bets he knows just who is helping them from the other side. Pain rockets through his body as he struggles to breathe, yet still his lips twitch. She growls at his expression and moves to strike him, to shake him, to throttle him.

Pitch black licorice arms, strong from years of acrobatics and swordsmanship, wrap around the Sugar Plum Fairy’s throat. Legs wrap around her waist, jostling both the Fairy and her cargo; Jet hauls against her from behind, snarling. “We didn’t take anything you haven’t already stolen from Candia, you _bitch!_ ”

The Fairy throws him away from her like day-old trash. Lapin feels weightless for a second, his sight simply a blur of colors. Then he slams into the ground and the air punches out of his lungs. Cracks spiderweb through the chocolate on his spine. He can feel his connection to the Bulb, to his spellcraft, slipping. As he struggles to his feet, Lapin’s paw frantically digs through his robes: the time is _now_.

Jet has climbed like a spider monkey onto the Fairy’s back. The Fairy twists, hands burning with icy magic, to get at her. The Princess screams, unarmed and furious, but she is no match for a being of the Celestial plane; in a matter of seconds she will be caught in the Fairy’s grip and that will be the true end of Princess Jet of Candia.

There is no reason Jet should have survived even this long. She should have been vaporized on immediate contact with the Fairy, the Celestial’s spiritual form too strong for her mind to comprehend. They should both be dead; this realization is what cements Lapin’s earlier suspicions. Someone in the Material Plane, perhaps in Candia, is distracting her. The Sugar Plum Fairy is spread out across two realms, dealing with himself and Jet at the same time as she deals with someone else. He hopes whoever it is gives her hell.

“Jet,” Lapin wheezes, his words carried away by the storm around them. “Princess Jet!” His throat, already raw, flames with pain as he raises his voice. Jet’s bright eyes catch his over the Fairy’s shoulder and comprehension dawns on her face. He holds up one paw as he crawls to his feet, fur glowing in the seed’s golden light. His other arm hangs limp against his side, an unwelcome memory of his time with the Bulbian Church. _Plane Shift_ tugs at Lapin’s attention, demanding he finish the casting. His connection to the Bulb almost consumes him now, power and magic thrumming through his very bones.

Jet loosens her grip on the Fairy’s throat and allows herself to go with the Fairy’s motions as she tries to shake the girl off. The Fairy twists, howling, and bends forward, reaching around her shoulder to grip at the Princess--that is enough leverage for Jet to work with. Jet pushes off her shoulders, plants a boot in the center of the Fairy’s back, and executes a front flip her sister would be proud of. She falls towards him, arching over the Fairy’s head. The Princess stumbles on the landing, one knee going out, and kneels beside Lapin, fingers stretched out towards him. 

Lapin bypasses her upturned palm and shoves the Bulb’s seed containing _True Resurrection_ straight into Princess Jet’s chest with all his remaining strength. On contact, the seed explodes into her and throws Jet onto her back. Her eyes are wide in her face, pupils turned to darting pinpricks as she gasps, golden light spreading over her form. The glaring flashes as the seed’s shell shatters to reveal Lapin’s Bulbian magic rock over the area. The Sugar Plum Fairy makes a noise between a growl and a yelp as she loses her footing, shoved backward out of the gazebo altogether. She doesn’t fall, the magic’s not strong enough for that, but her heels skid through the mist before she comes to a stop. Surprised fury twists her insect eyes.

_Plane Shift_ shrieks through him. Lapin falls forward as Jet’s limbs become corporeal again. His joints groan as he thuds to his knees at her side, his entire body ringing with pain. He feels her fingers taking shape, gaining weight as he grips at them; death-rot stops eating at him where they touch. “Lapin,” Jet gasps, the pulse in her throat jumping as her heart begins to beat again. “Lapin, what’s happening?”

“We’re going home now,” he returns hurriedly. He raises his other arm, paw dangling limply from a broken wrist. Preston slots into place against his ribs like he belongs there. “We’re going home, Princess.”

“You wish to go back to Candia? To that mess you’ve made? _After all I’ve done for you!_ ” The Sugar Plum Fairy’s voice booms. It resonates in his very heart and Lapin lifts his head. For once, he does not feel instinctive fear at meeting her gaze. Her eyes have that icy light again; she’s fighting this war on two fronts. Arms curled around his most constant companion and his dead Princess coming alive, Lapin grits his teeth and releases _Plane Shift_.

Light blooms through the wreaked gazebo once more, bubbling around his group as _Plane Shift_ takes effect. The Sugar Plum Fairy shrieks again, horror and fury stabbing into Lapin’s eardrums. He concentrates on Candia, on his home, on Princess Jet and his promise to protect her family. The spell swirls, lifts, and holds. Still Lapin holds the spirit’s gaze as they begin to disappear. The Fairy’s mouth curls around a sneer. 

_“Let it never be said that a fairy did not grant wishes.”_

~

Ruby has denied the Sugar Plum Fairy. She’s rejected the one chance she had of ever seeing Jet again. She has chosen to live. Ruby nocks another arrow into her bow, Flickerish’s metal a burning reminder at her hip. She grits her teeth against the fading pain of her torn connection to the Fairy and aims for the head.

~

Cinnamon curls, warm and sweet, around Saccharina’s shoulders. Her heart thumps hard in her chest. Sir Theobald launches his weaponry at the Sugar Plum Fairy, misses, and takes a bolt of magic meant to kill to the chest for his trouble. She reaches out and grips Ruby with her, teleporting them even closer. In the back of her mind, she worries for Theobald, all alone atop that high platform, but she can’t go back for him now. Ruby launches forward and lands nimbly beside their father. The Princess does not look back but draws her sword, throwing herself into the fray with reckless abandon; it makes Saccharina’s traitorous heart drop to her stomach. 

Saccharina has a family for the first time; magic swirls at her fingertips, tugging at her, and a feral grin stretches across her face. She won’t let anything happen to her people now. 

~

Liam’s nose fills with the sting of peppermint. That constant flaming rage licks at him under his skin as he readies another shot with his crossbow. They’re in the home stretch now, he can feel it. But if they don’t do something fast, Cumulous will fall from the Fairy’s back; Liam can see his eyes, darting in his frozen face. The monk’s potential last act was to grapple and stun the Sugar Plum Fairy. Liam intends to make it count.

A loud crack emanates from seemingly all around them-- _the mist,_ Liam’s brain supplies, _it’s coming from_ inside _the mist_ \--and Liam jerks to attention. Something is happening, something they haven’t foreseen. 

~

Alone and unarmed, Theo reaches for the Battle Pop again. Its orange glow soars back to him through the mist of the temple’s chambers. The hilt feels like the handshake of an old friend as it slams into his palm and Theo folds his fingers around the metal, a heavy weight. It has always been an extension of himself, but the sword isn’t much use in this fight.

He’s stuck. Fury and worry war in his gut, but Theo is practical enough to realize this. He doesn’t have enough magical skill to steer the popsicles the way Saccharina can and he’s lost the javelins he’d been throwing. This great monster just keeps coming and he can’t do _anything_ \--

A bright flash explodes across the arena, searing his retinas. Theo throws his forearm over his eyes, only just remembering to keep his footing as he stumbles in surprise. He blinks away the spots and lowers his arm from his face after a moment, dreading whatever magical attack the Sugar Plum Fairy has sent out now. Sparks of the spell are dissipating still, gold and red-- _wasn’t the Fairy’s color usually purple?_ \--and the smell of fresh vegetation and artificial sweetener wafts through the Ice Cream Temple.

None of Theobald’s people have been thrown into the mist, nor have they fallen where they stand. He takes stock from above them all, heart still in his throat as the sounds of battle recover from where they had faltered at the light’s appearance. And that is when he notices them.

There are two new but very familiar figures standing on the platforms at the Fairy’s feet.

~

King Amethar readies himself as best he can to catch Cumulous when he falls. He hasn’t been able to do much in this fight and it rankles him, but he’ll be damned if he loses another member of his family. His cousin teeters on the Fairy’s back, limbs locked into the position they’d been in before the celestial had paralyzed him. Amethar can’t tell whether he’s still an obstruction to her movement, but the Fairy does seem a little more sluggish than she was before. She hasn’t bolted off to the other side of the chamber again and her eyes keep flickering between blue and purple. 

She seems distracted, but not by anything they’re doing. The expression on her face is almost--almost as if she’s looking at something, or maybe someone, who simply isn’t there. Her mouth, a gash in a face that makes Amethar’s head pound, twists. As the light from the spell fades Amethar wonders if she’d failed in whatever she’d tried. His daughter spins into the battle at his side and she seems healthy--whatever magic that was, it must not have worked.

Another javelin launched from John Bon sails over Amethar’s head and he’s back in the fight. Stone cracks and falls from the icy ceiling; he sees Liam dodge a falling icicle. Gooey and Swifty shout at each other, trying to move their platform with little success. The Sugar Plum Fairy howls, twisting, clawing at his cousin, who is hanging on by a thread. A peppermint crossbow bolt lodges itself into the wall behind her head a second after she moves. 

“You _fools!_ ” The Fairy cries, voice an eldritch rumble. “You were _safe!_ You were safe, I was bringing your family to you-- _you traitors!_ _I’ll rip your soul out for this, Cadbury.”_

The deep smell of cinnamon and fire flares through the area and Amethar blinks. It’s a dark kind of magic sweeping around them; even someone as null as the King can recognize that. This doesn’t smell bright and Vegetanian, not sweet like the Path’s magic--this is something else. His mind flashes to Cumulous, sucking the souls of his victims out on the shipwreck. This is of the Hungry One.

Bright flashing lights appear again, a crack reverberating throughout the space, vibrating in his bones. The wind is knocked out of Amethar, his ribs hitching as he tries and fails to gain his vision back. The fight is frozen. It is as if time has stopped. In the limbo, the Sugar Plum Fairy’s words hang, suspended, between his people and their foe.

_Cadbury._

_Cadbury._

_Cadbury._

The light dims the crash of battle returns, and Amethar looks up to see a new platform, high above their heads, has appeared. Two figures stand on the floating rock, light shrouding them from prying eyes. There’s not much detail he can make out--one figure is smaller, slighter than the other, which rises tall and thin against the backlight of the Fairy’s awesome figure. Robes billow out from the tall one’s frame and the slight one is poised to leap, light-footed and agile. And then a voice Amethar never thought he’d hear again booms out, louder and more confident than he has ever imagined it could have been. 

_“Where is your Bulb now?”_

The cinnamon deepens even further, until Amethar might be sick from it, and _Divine Smite_ rings out, slamming into the Sugar Plum Fairy’s center mass. She reels, screaming, and Cumulous almost swings free. It is enough to snap Amethar back to the present, shock and wonder and growing hope smothered as his family falls further into danger. He bends his knees, plants his feet as much as he can on the precarious popsicle stick, and hopes whoever has arrived knows enough to get out of the way, to teleport or--

Then someone grips his shoulder, clutching at his armor. He bends with it when an attack doesn’t follow and it’s almost natural to feel a person’s body swoop closer, as if to speak in his ear. It feels--it’s just like--

Amethar tears his attention from his cousin, surprise wiping his mind blank, and looks up into Lapin Cadbury’s old, crinkled eyes.

His robes, torn and dirtied, flutter in the mist. His face is melted slightly, his arm is held oddly against his side, and Peppermint Preston is tucked into the crook of his elbow. There’s a chunk missing from one of his ears. Amethar squints, his mouth feeling cottony, and realizes that, yes, the rabbit, the inexplicably alive rabbit, is _glowing_. An aura surrounds the warlock, pulsing purple, red, green and gold. But perhaps the strangest sight of all is the halo around Lapin’s head; shards of violet and lavender sugar glass float in a circle inches from his scalp, shifting and changing into strange geometric shapes as he moves. He is just as Amethar remembers and like nothing Amethar has ever seen.

“My King,” Lapin intones, teeth glinting in the Sugar Plum Fairy’s ethereal light as he smirks. “May I offer my assistance?”

“You’re late,” is all Amethar can think to say. The battle rages on, forgotten, around them.

Lapin’s smile widens further. There is something foreign about his eyes. “I had to collect my student first.”

And he turns, light-footed and sure, pushing Amethar back towards the bulk of the platform. For a second Amethar goes to protest; his cousin’s life hangs in the balance. Then he looks up at the second figure on that platform--and all words are forgotten.

~

It _can’t_ be. Those words--that voice--Ruby can’t think of this now. The battle is still raging, even with the shock that turned them all to stone for a moment. She still has a celestial to kill, must still avenge a dead sister, must keep her remaining family safe.

_‘Cadbury,’_ her mind whispers. _She said ‘Cadbury.’ If he’s back, then why not--_

These thoughts can’t distract her now; there’s no way to even confirm this isn’t a trick by the Fairy, that the man she saw on the platform is her old teacher. There’s no way for the dead to come back to life. It must be someone coming to help them, someone alive. She’s not tall enough to see over the heads of the marauders, and she doesn’t have Theobald’s advantage from a higher platform. The new players are already on the move--the taller figure disappeared before the damage of _Divine Smite_ was even over, and the smaller one leapt to a new platform, closer to Ruby. At least they seem to be on her side. For now.

Ruby hefts Flickerish the Twizzling Blade aloft, teeth bared and her blood singing in her ears. The Fairy shakes Cumulous off her back and roars. Her heart stops beating as Ruby sees her cousin fall, fall, fall--

A door in space opens just beneath the monk as he plummets. A dark brown paw-- _what?_ \--reaches through and, as Cumulous passes at terminal velocity, snags the back of his tunic; the monk is pulled through the opening and disappears all at once. It takes Ruby’s mind a moment, gears spinning, to realize she’s witnessed _Dimension Door_. But that paw--that had looked like--

There’s no more time for her to ponder. It was probably Saccharina somehow anyway.

Flickerish burns and burns and burns in her hands and Ruby readies herself, knees bending, to spring for the throat.

“Ruby!” 

Ruby’s throat constricts at the sound of twinspeak. She jerks in place, ready for another of the Fairy’s tricks--she’s almost down now, Ruby can tell, she’s just hanging on, grasping at scraps--

_“Ruby! Jump for me, I’ll catch you!”_

Ruby’s suspicion is not enough to keep her from reacting to a lifelong trust in her truest friend. She jumps.

Her sister catches her.

“See,” Jet says, grinning wide and alive and so very beautifully vibrant as she hauls Ruby up with her. They stand before a terrifying being together, hands wrapped around the hilt of Flickerish, fingers laced. Ruby feels like flying. “Didn’t I tell you I’d always protect you?”

Ruby’s face is suddenly wet, her laugh suddenly thick. None of this matters. “You did. You did. Gods, Jet. You really did.”

“Time for crying later,” Jet soothes. Her smile has an edge Ruby now recognizes in herself. It’s hard not to smile back. “What do you say we kill this bitch first?”

“Let’s.”

Flickerish rises in the hands of both Princesses of the House of Rocks and plunges into the Sugar Plum Fairy’s chest.

~

The Sugar Plum Fairy falls. 

Lapin feels his connection to the Sweetening Path strain, thin, almost snap. It jerks in his chest as if it’s a living thing; as if he swallowed a parasite the day he tied his faith to the Sugar Plum Fairy. Then he breathes, reaches, and feels the Bulb’s power, the Sweetening Path’s true source, rush to meet him. It flows through his veins, bolstering his waning magic. _Divine Smite_ right after _Plane Shift_ left him feeling faint. He almost didn’t have enough energy left to use _Dimension Door_ for the paralyzed monk Amethar needed Lapin to save. 

The Bulb fills him, and with a whiff of healthy soil, Lapin’s bones shift back into place, his chocolate reforming, the melting in his face snapping back into shape. His eyesight clears a bit. When the magic leaves him he aches, feeling every year of his age weighing down on him. Sometimes Lapin wishes he weren’t so old.

There’s confusion around him. He hears Theobald shout from his platform. The ice cream warrior and those in a strange mishmash of armors help the House of Rocks get back to the moveable platforms. Lapin’s heart had lurched when the Sisters Rocks had leapt at the Fairy, but they managed to scramble back onto land once the job was done. They are twined together, whispering, and Lapin feels no need to reach out and eavesdrop. The monk is regaining his senses, reaching up to clasp a hand over where Lapin’s paw rests on his shoulder. His eyes are hollow and strange.

  
"You saved me,” he states. “Who are you?”

“Lapin Cadbury.” The monk flips to his feet before Lapin can even think to offer him help. The platforms float slowly back towards the room’s entrance, the mist dissipating. Soon, there will be much discussion to be had. Lapin feels a headache begin to pound at his temples. “Ex-Chancellor of the Bulbian Church in Candia.”

“I am Cumulous Rocks, cousin to the King, monk of the Order of the Spinning Star.” The monk tilts his head, lips twitching. He indicates something just behind Lapin’s head. “I think you might be a bit more than a Chancellor now, if it’s any consolation.”

Confused, he reaches up and his paw encounters something sharp. As their platform floats by the reflective walls of the temple, he looks up and sees someone-- _something_ \--not himself. The rabbit looking back is strange, foreign in a way that reminds Lapin of the Fairy. Otherworldly. Not of this plane. The halo of sugar-glass casts a purple light around his head so bright his ears almost look encased in purple flame. His eyes are not as bright as they used to be, but deep and dark, glittering in his face. Light pulses from him and his clothes move in a wind not present in the Ice Cream Temple. This is not who he used to be.

The Bulb and the Hungry One and the Sweetening Path--they have all changed Lapin, in ways he’s not sure he will ever truly understand. His body feels the same as it used to, but his mind is different; wider and more open than it has ever been. Dread drops into the pit of his stomach. But it is not the time to address it--there is too much to do, too much to say, and not nearly enough time. Lapin will have to pull himself together if he wants to help Candia once again.

_Do I want that?_ He wonders. _The Fairy is dead. I am free. I have brought the Princess back to life._

He’s done more for them than he’d ever thought he would. It’s more than he’s ever really wanted to help. Lapin is no patriot, no statesman, and no family to the House of Rocks. He saved the daughter, helped the cousin, kept his mouth shut under pain of death. Hell, he kept the damn pig alive. What more is Lapin willing to give? He’s obviously lost more of himself to the powers that be than Lapin ever wanted to give, and all for Candia’s sake. 

But he cannot stray too deeply into his own thoughts. Lapin and Cumulous soon step off their platform onto solid ground and there is one last thing for him to do before explanations will be needed. His paw lands heavily on a peppermint shoulder that is much wider than he remembers. “Hello Liam,” Lapin says, and he cannot help the warmth that seeps into the words. 

“ _Lapin_ ,” Liam breathes. And then, “ _Preston!_ ”

The tiny pig wriggles out of Lapin’s robes and leaps into his boy’s arms. Lapin doesn’t stop his own laughter as Liam folds himself around his pet. He disregards the tears in the boy’s eyes. His own feel a little wet too. “I may see the value of your pet now. He was very good company.”

“Lapin, you’re--you’re here! You’re alive!” Liam reaches out, an abortive movement, before seeming to steel himself and curls his fingers into Lapin’s sleeve. Lapin does not shake him off. More than ever he is struck by Candian bravery; he looks like a spirit from the same realm as the Fairy now, and yet Liam acts like he’s only just stopping himself from wrapping his arms around him. Children will never cease to astound Lapin. He’s so glad he never had any of his own. “Theo told us you were gonna be executed--you’re supposed to be dead!”

“I’m sorry to disappoint.”

“I’m definitely not disappointed.” Liam assures him. Preston _oinks_ and pushes a wet snout into Liam’s cheek and for the first time since the Sucrosi Road, Liam laughs. His face is wan, paler and thinner than Lapin remembers it. It makes something in his chest twist. Liam gave up his only friend for some old rabbit he didn’t know. “I wanted to go help, we all did. It was just--”

“I didn’t want you to.” He drops his paw from Liam’s shoulder, having completely forgotten it was there. “I thought I’d die anyway; if you came back you would’ve been killed too. I’m glad you stayed away.”

The pig squeals again and Liam lets him down. Preston circles his master’s feet once, twice, before running to Lapin and bracing his forelegs on the rabbit’s shins. Awkwardly, Lapin bends and smooths the hair on the pig’s head back from his eyes; he could use a haircut. Apparently satisfied with the attention he’s received, Preston wuffles and trots back to Liam, curling into a ball and plopping down on his feet. 

“You saved Preston,” Liam whispers after a pause. Lapin cannot seem to meet the child’s eyes. His skin itches. 

“You sent him to help me. I could not leave him behind.”

“I really missed you.” That’s all there is time for before Jet crashes into his shoulders from behind. As the Princess wraps her arms around Liam’s neck and Ruby joins the fray, tears streaking down her face, Lapin steps away with as much discretion as he can. In moments, Amethar is by his side; the ice cream woman is not far behind.

“My King.” The words roll off his tongue, familiar, almost a comfort. “I’m sure we have much to discuss.”

“Yeah, I think that’s about right.” For the first time, his King claps a palm down on Lapin’s shoulder instead. “But first--it’s damn good to have you back Lapin.”

~

The conversation lasts deep into the night. They move from the Ice Cream Temple after demolishing the entrance--the warrior Lapin is told is Saccharina Frostwhip, newfound daughter of Amethar Rocks, seems particularly torn up, and Cumulous starts crying--and retreat to Castle Manylicks. Joren Jawbreaker is as abrasive and loud as Lapin remembers him. Caramelinda looked as if she were about to faint when she saw Lapin and had thrown herself into her daughter’s arms a second later. The mother hasn’t let Jet go yet and Ruby and Amethar haven’t hesitated to join the pair. Saccharina Frostwhip lingers on the edges of the tableau; pity curls in Lapin’s gut, but there are more important things to think about.

They tell him of Candia--of Calroy, the bastard. Jet has more choice words for him but Lapin settles for curling his lip in silence. His new magic festers in his mind, lashing out at his anger; he feels sparks strike to life at the centers of his paws, his hair standing on end. The aura he sports now turns nearly black before he gets it under control again. This may be a bit tricker than he’d expected. Still, he keeps his mouth shut through the explanation of Saccharina and Joren and the Fairy’s plans. 

It doesn’t take long for him to get through his side of the story, but he’s repeated it three times over by now. He tells them all as succinct a version of things as he can, with minimal interjections from Jet: he was captured by the Pontifex and held prisoner, he’d seen both Manta Ray Jack and Sir Morris Brie but turned down their offer of help, he’d tapped into the Hungry One to get away from the Bulbian Church and had ended up being taken to the Ethereal Plane by the Sugar Plum Fairy herself. 

“He set the cathedral on fire,” Jet pipes up. She points a finger at Lapin. “You thought I’d forget about that but I didn’t.”

“You _did?”_ Liam yelps, looking like his birthday has come early. Amethar and Theobald’s eyebrows kiss their hairlines. The marauders send up an extremely loud cheer. Lapin clears his throat and moves on.

“After I met Jet on the Sweetening Path I managed to find spellbooks that the Fairy had been hoarding for years; these allowed me to create _True Resurrection_ and _Plane Shift_. It’s what enabled Jet and myself to come back.”

“You brought the dead back to life.”

Lapin tips his head in Caramelinda’s direction. It’s strange not to address her with any honorifics. “Yes. Well. It was done regularly, once upon a time.”

Her eyes are as sharp as ever. “The Bulbian Church forbids any necromancy.”

“For fear of the spread of death-rot, yes. But just because they forbid it--just because they destroyed any trace of it--does not mean the spells do not still exist.”

“They’re always going to ban magics they don’t understand,” Frostwhip speaks up. It is the first time Lapin has heard her overly cheerful tone falter, subdued in the face of her newfound family’s closeness. He’s heard her story from Theo and Liam on their way here; orphaned, abandoned, striving always to get higher up in the world than the position she was born to. She started from nothing and now she’s to be the Queen. Lapin feels some long-forgotten notion of kinship stir in his breast and wonders just what it has cost her. 

Hopefully she doesn’t owe a fairy any wishes.

“Just because the Church was the one to ban them doesn’t mean they aren’t dangerous,” Caramelinda returns, curt.

“Regardless of the danger, the spell worked and Jet is back.” This conversation has been long and tedious. If they get off track now, Lapin is going to _Thunderstep_ out of here and never come back. He can’t remember the last time he’s slept in a bed. “Obviously, my magic has gone a bit haywire since I’ve been using many sources of power, but I can assure everyone present that I have it under control. Jet will have no lasting side effects of death. Now, I suggest we all get some rest; if I am not mistaken, Your Majesty,” he turns to Queen Saccharina, “we will have a war council after the coronation, yes?”

“Oh! Oh, yes, of course we will. I’d say it’s almost time to move--that cake fellow has been pushing to be recognized by the Concord and the acknowledgment of the Meatlands and the Dairy Islands of my coronation will only go so far if the Church ends up backing his claim.”

Yes. Once again, it seemed the House of Rocks and all their allies have their work cut out for them. Lapin thinks again of freedom; then he hauls himself up and excuses himself, intent on finally resting.

“Lapin, wait up a minute.”

Irritation claws at Lapin but he halts just outside the door, idling in the hallway as the family files out. For a second Liam pauses, Preston cuddled to his chest. He wavers, eying Lapin as if he will disappear. The rabbit tilts his head and says nothing. Eventually, the boy smiles slightly, nods, and hurries away. For all he’s grown up, some things never change. It makes a small puff of amusement leave Lapin. His aura flickers.

Theobald sidles up to him as Amethar and Caramelinda leave the council room, followed by the twins. Saccharina and her people nod politely as they pause to close the door and then he and the large goon are alone. 

Theo seems to be having trouble finding his words. Lapin rolls his eyes. “If you’re just going to make me wait until you’ve gotten your thoughts in order, you could at least do me the courtesy of thinking while we walk. This place is drafty and I’ve been looking forward to a real mattress since the first time I almost died.”

Theobald opens his mouth, then pauses. He gestures. “Can you even lay down with all...that on your head?”

That--is a good question. Lapin concentrates hard for a second, Sweetening Path and Bulbian magic rising in his throat, and the halo’s glow dims. “I am eager to find out, Sir Theobald. If you wouldn’t mind?”

“Oh--of course. Sorry.”

The bear is a looming presence at Lapin’s side. He’s not sure if he finds the familiar, pregnant silence between them exhausting or comforting. Things are so different from what they once were; before all this, before the cathedral and the Fairy and dying and not dying, he could have sent a quick, harmless jab Sir Theobald’s way and expected it returned in kind. Now the eldritch knight is quiet, somber in the way war makes everyone. Lapin recognizes it, wonders if Theobald sees it in Lapin himself. There are words that cannot be spoken, thoughts that they both know may never see the light of day. The ghosts of actions not taken haunt them both, haunt the House of Rocks, and haunt the whole of Comida.

Sir Theobald leads him through the twisting, rough-hewn stone corridors until they stop in front of one of the guest suites. Lapin’s bones ache and his head pounds. He’d slept on the Sweetening Path with Jet standing over him like an overzealous guard dog. It wasn’t enough. He’s so tired.

“I mean it, you know.” 

Lapin shakes himself from thoughts that cling like cobwebs. He’s getting lost in himself more often these days; he wonders if perhaps it's a side effect of his new magics. It’s a worrying notion. “You really must work on making yourself clear, Sir Theobald. You mean what?”

“I _am_ sorry.” Theobald’s eyes are flinty and meet his straight on. Lapin is surprised to find his throat tightens. “I knew you were trapped and I left you there. I saw you go down in the cathedral after you cast _Fly_ to get me out of there and I jumped anyway. I didn’t tell the others you were alive until it was too late to go back.”

“I told you to leave me. I’d have been angrier with you if you hadn’t listened.”

“We all wanted to go get you. Liam--he took it pretty hard. He gets so angry these days, but this was something else. He hasn’t forgotten what you did for him. For us.”

“I didn’t want that.” The repetition eats at his nerves, just like everything does these days. Lapin swallows dryly; he didn’t know--he’d thought Liam might feel needlessly guilty, like Theobald, but...he didn’t _know._ “I did what was best for Candia. Don’t blame yourselves for my choices. Besides, I may take credit for the continued survival of the whole party; I’m not going to allow you all to take that away from me.”

Sir Theobald obviously isn’t expecting a joke. His surprised laugh brays in the silence of the castle but Lapin’s lips twitch into a smile anyway. The bear sobers quickly. “You--when you messaged me. You called me your friend.”

_Ugh._ “Please don’t get emotional, Sir Theobald. I simply couldn’t stand it.”

Theo huffs, humor hidden behind affront. “Fine. I was _going_ to say that I am-- _your friend_ \--but I take it back now. You don’t deserve my friendship.”

“Perish the thought.” Lapin assures. He reaches around his friend to draw open his door and throws a smile over his shoulder. “It has been a long night for me, Sir Theobald, so I’ll take my leave of you.”

“Goodnight.”

~

Things move fast after Lapin and Jet manage to reassure everyone that yes, they are in fact alive, and no, they aren’t going anywhere. Lapin spies Ruby slipping from Jet’s room in the early mornings, but if the sisters need a little more comfort from closeness than their age and station should allow, he’s not one to judge. Lapin himself wakes in the night more often than not; it chafes at his sensibilities, but he just can’t seem to accept the fact that he’s free. He’s out. He has survived. His brain has other ideas, evidently: it conjures nightmares and stressors and sends his breathing into fits in the early hours. He sleeps little now, although he does seem to need less and less of it as time wears on--Lapin wakes with his aura flickering around him, shards of glass candy floating above his head in the mirror, and is reminded too often he is not fully Candian anymore. Lapin takes to wandering the halls in the wee hours of the morning and hopes, like he’s sure Ruby and Jet hope, that no one notices his new habit.

Liam notices.

Or, more precisely, Peppermint Preston notices and won’t leave damn well enough alone. The pig takes to following Lapin through the hallways, _oink_ ing louder and louder until Lapin furiously shushes the animal out of fear that he should wake the whole castle. When he stops one night, irritation making him want to shake the poor pig, the animal squeals and runs a circle around his feet before darting off the way they came. Lapin sighs in relief but then Preston stops and looks back like he wants the rabbit to follow.

“Insufferable thing,” Lapin mutters, but does as he is bid. It’s not like he’s going to be able to go back to his room and sleep anyway. The sun is just curling its first fingers of light across the horizon; Lapin knows he has a few hours to whittle away before anything of import needs to be done. He might as well indulge his little friend. 

Preston leads him through a few winding passages, past where the newly coronated Queen Frostwhip is staying (Gooey, standing sentinel outside her rooms, nods silently) and the rooms Lapin knows Amethar and Caramelinda have taken up (no Sir Theobald outside, but Lapin knows better than to think he’s out of hearing range). They ascend a few staircases, Lapin grumbling all the while, and come out at the top of a parapet. 

“Why have you led us here, you silly animal?” Lapin shivers in the early morning wind. His bones feel fragile; even with the magic that now sustains him, Lapin has never felt as old as he does these days.

“Lapin?”

He jumps, gripping the wall for support when vertigo clutches at him. Liam sits with his legs hanging over the wall; Lapin feels his heart twinge just looking at him. His crossbow is laid to the side and he is in his sleep clothes. His hair is messy from bed and his lips are tinged blue. He’s been out here a long time. Lapin frowns.

“Liam, what are you doing out here?”

“Oh, uh.” The boy looks out at the mountains around them. He blinks like he’s just realizing where he is before looking back at Lapin. “Uh, I don’t know. It’s quiet up here, I guess.”

“Ah.” Strangely, a swell of warmth bubbles in his chest. Lapin shakes it off and carefully makes his way over. He folds to his knees as steadily as he can and settles against the wall next to Liam. The stone is cold against his fur. Liam shivers and Preston snuggles into the boy’s lap. The way his hands (so _small_ , Liam was only a child when they tried to kill him in the church) curl carefully around his pet arrests Lapin. The warmth swells again and Lapin looks away. 

“I like the quiet,” Liam says. 

“I do too.”

“Oh, sorry. I should stop talking then.”

“I’m not angry at you, Liam.”

“Oh.” Liam fidgets, draws his knees closer to his chest. They both turn to the view--it _is_ a very good one--and fall silent. Lapin can feel Liam thinking, the gears turning loudly in his head. Before, he might have tried to draw the boy out of whatever funk he is in, tried to get into his head, tried to figure him out. Now, Lapin just waits. “I think I am though. Angry. At me, I mean.”

Something clenches in Lapin. He hates this war. “Why is that?”

Liam shrugs, shoulders stiff. “I don’t know. I guess--I know you said it was okay that we didn’t go back for you, but I thought you and Preston were dead, and then you weren’t, and we _still_ didn’t go back for you. I mean, not that I knew Preston was alive, but... We should’ve gone back anyway. And--I know, you’re gonna say you didn’t want us to, I know--but it’s more than that too.”

Lapin tips his head, listening. The horizon grows just a bit brighter. “I’m so angry all the time, at everything, you know? The cathedral, losing Preston--and you, I guess, but Preston’s my only friend--it changed me. I know it did. I know I’m not who I used to be. I was a seed guy. But now I’m a war guy and it feels _good._ What does that say about me?”

“And I know everybody can see how different I am. I see the way they look at me and it just makes me _angrier_. I love them, but this is what they made me into, you know? If Amethar hadn’t married Caramelinda this wouldn’t have happened to me. Or that’s what I think sometimes.”

Lapin nods slowly. Liam is not done. “But I know that’s dumb to think. Amethar is one of the only people who has ever cared about me, really cared. And if it hadn’t been him breaking the rules that started the war, it would’ve been something else. I’d still have magic, so the church would still want to kill me, and they would’ve gone after you the same way and I would’ve tried to help, and Preston still would’ve almost died. So I’d be the same way I am now. So that’s a stupid thing to think about Amethar, but sometimes I still think it. Then I get angry because I know I shouldn’t, but I can’t _stop,_ and then I get angry at everybody--Saccharina is so complicated and Ruby didn’t think we could go get you and Theo is nice but he doesn't tell us _anything_ until the last minute and I just _hate_ this. I hate feeling so angry all the time. But I’m a war guy now and it feels like anger is all I have.” The boy looks up, mouth a troubled slant in his face. “Things are changing and I changed with them but I don’t know if that was a good thing, you know?”

Lapin is quiet for a long time. Liam turns from him and looks back at the sunrise. There are birds chirping as they wake and the wind still blows cold around them. It is very still up here.

“Did you know,” Lapin starts picking his words, slow, “that I don’t have to eat anymore?”

Liam looks puzzled. 

“It’s true. I’ve tried, but it’s just not appealing to me. I can barely stomach cola. I kept wondering what was happening, if something was wrong with me--and then I realized it must have something to do with all the magic I’ve ingested from the Bulb and the Hungry One and the Sweetening Path. I’ve got the halo and the aura and now apparently I don’t have to eat. I barely need sleep.”

“Huh. That’s gotta be weird.”

“It is. And I can do more magic than any one person should ever be able to now. I’ve tapped into something I don’t truly understand and I can feel it inside, growing. I can feel that my mind is different, that I’m different. I’m not sure what to do about it, if there is really anything to be done. Sound familiar?”

Liam hums. Lapin takes a moment to wrap his robes further around himself, although the cold barely bites into him anymore. He’s grown used to it. “There is nothing wrong with changing, Liam, although it can be frightening.”

“I’m not scared.”

“I am.” Lapin smiles when the child looks up quickly. He knows it doesn’t reach his eyes. “Oh, that’s probably the first time an adult has ever admitted that to you, isn’t it? I’m sorry, I suppose. I should have protected you from it. But it’s true; change is frightening for me, especially those changes which I do not understand. And do you know something?”

A shake of the head. 

“It’s alright to be afraid. It’s alright if I’m scared and you’re angry. Honestly, Liam, I would be more worried if you weren’t feeling any adverse effects of this war. You’re right--even if Amethar has made terrible mistakes, so have we all. If he hadn’t, the war would still be raging, just with some other flimsy excuse in place. Still, you can be as angry as you wish--at everyone, at no one, at Amethar or Ruby or Saccharina or me--but do not fault yourself for _feeling_ . Feeling is what has made you strong. The only thing that is hurting you is defining yourself by this anger--anger is not all that you are, Liam. I regret that you _must_ have this anger--that you _must_ change like this; I wish it had been different. Candia should have protected you, and we did not, and for that I am deeply sorry.”

Liam doesn’t look up from where he has begun studying his hands and Lapin knows this may not have been the answer he wished to hear. He’s sorry the boy has to be disappointed again. On impulse, he speaks. “Do you know, you remind me of myself when I was young. I was a street urchin, I don’t think I ever told you that.”

“You _were?”_

Lapin laughs. “Oh, yes. I couldn’t even read. I stole a book from some druids and summoned the Sugar Plum Fairy to bind her to me, and, well, you can tell that backfired on me.” Lapin casts shrewd eyes upon his companion. “I was so very angry for such a long time when she bound _me_ to _her_ will instead. I could never quite think straight.”

“Yeah.” Liam is still subdued and Lapin feels his chest tighten.

“There is nothing wrong with being angry; I know this, Liam. But there is also nothing wrong with letting that anger go. I had to let it go to be who I am today. It will take you a long time, and a large amount of effort. But if you don’t want to be a war guy anymore, if you want to let that go--I will be here to help.”

The sun has risen. After a moment, Liam’s side settles against Lapin’s. The boy’s head rests on his shoulder. Preston wuffles softly. Lapin breathes and does not feel tired. An idea is forming in the back of his mind but it can wait for now. “Rage is not all that you are; it never has been, it never will be. There is nothing wrong with being a seed guy, Liam. One day, you will be one again.”

Liam sits so quietly for a moment Lapin wonders if he’s fallen asleep. That would be alright. Then, so softly the wind nearly carries the words away, he asks, “Will you tell me about the Hungry One? And the Bulb? What do they all mean?”

“Ah,” Lapin says, feeling himself slip back into his teacher persona, a smile twitching at his lips. “Now _there’s_ something interesting.”

~

A Bulbian church is on fire. Lapin watches dispassionately as it burns. Cinnamon huffs, belching more smoke and sparks into the night sky; around them, marauders hoot and howl, rounding townspeople up and escorting them out of the village. A personal storm whirls around Queen Saccharina Frostwhip as she stands judge, jury, and executioner over members of the Bulbian church they’ve caught.

Lapin still thinks his display at the cathedral was better. 

“My Queen.” He has to raise his voice considerably to be heard over the creaking breams of the church’s skeleton. They’ll snap any moment. “The fires are spreading.”

“Oh, right!” Queen Saccharina turns and, with a flick of her wrist, conjures water. It flows in a graceful arc and splashes down on thatched roofs of the citizens’ homes. Lapin tips his head to her. “Good thing you caught that. I wouldn’t want to put anyone out of their homes!”

Lapin eyes the church members on their knees in the dirt. “Of course.”

He knew what he’d been getting into when he volunteered to help Saccharina oversee the removal of the Bulb’s followers from Candia. As Primogen, he’d been in charge of keeping track of the locations and congregations of the church’s branches in the country. It had made sense for him to offer his aid, and he’d been prepared for--expectant of, really--violence. It is still disconcerting to see native Candians about to die by his ruler’s blade. But they chose their side, and theirs is a side which would cheer at his death and so Lapin can muster little sympathy. 

Cinnamon roars before swinging his head down to his mistress’s level. They share eye contact and Cinnamon lets out a sound weirdly like a deeper version of Preston’s wuffle. “Oh, go on then,” Saccharina says. There’s a deeply indulgent, motherly tone to her words. Lapin’s gaze sharpens. His aura casts blue light around him; the red of a priest's blood as it splatters at Lapin’s feet mixes with his light and turns the dirt a dark purple. Lapin’s stomach rolls; Cinnamon swallows and lifts his lips from his teeth in an approximation of a grin. Saccharina’s expression becomes a little wooden.

Lapin keeps watch over her as she instructs her warriors not to harm anyone innocent. He sidles up to walk back to their teleportation circle together when she is done. “My Queen.” It seems everyone related to Amethar Rocks has little to no peripheral vision; she jumps like she didn’t expect him to be at her side. 

“Lapin.”

Before they left she’d asked if he wanted to be her Master of The Arcane. She’d been handing out titles like candy but refused to let anyone feel they had less power than another in her court. That almost foreign feeling of kinship raises its head again.

“Cinnamon is quite spectacular in battle, if I may say so.”

She bristles but does not look at the rabbit. “That wasn’t a battle. It was barely an ambush.”

“As you wish, Your Majesty.”

“Lapin--Mr. Cadbury?” Lapin shakes his head. “Lapin. I realize that was a little macabre. I didn’t really know things would get that violent. No one but the church was supposed to get hurt.”

“I see.” The new Queen doesn’t realize the power of her companions or of her child. A spirit of the Sweetening Path is under her thumb and she doesn’t realize how bloodthirsty he could be. Lapin lets his magical awareness stretch out and brush briefly against Cinnamon’s; the Sweetening Path roils around the dragon and he starts as its awareness reaches back towards him. He pulls away before Cinnamon can sense the Bulb in him--that probably wouldn’t end well. She doesn’t know, indeed.

“I know I seem naive; a little girl playing dress-up in daddy’s crown, huh?” In the flickering torchlight, her mouth is a grim slash against pale green skin. Her eyes glitter strangely in Lapin’s indigo aura. “But Cinnamon and my people are the closest I’ve ever had to family and I must protect them. I must protect Candia.”

“Your Majesty,” Lapin begins, only stopping when Saccharina winces. “Your Majesty, I am a Candian who served the Sugar Plum Fairy, joined the Bulbian Church, and betrayed both for the sake of your father’s family. I hope I have not given you the impression that I am not loyal to your cause.”

Something in his deference strikes Saccharina. She regards him as Lapin feels unease creep up his spine. “You handle your words well, Lapin. Where are you from, again?”

“Nowhere.”

“Nowhere?” His Queen waves off her second-in-command when Gooey starts to approach. Her eyes are piercing. “Then you’re just like me, aren’t you?”

Kinship, indeed. Lapin lets himself relax, muscle by muscle. This new Queen of his may be intimidating, naive, utterly unknown--but not unknowable. He hesitates only a second more. “Growing up in the middle of nowhere and fighting to survive from the minute I knew how to? Engaging in heretical magic just to get by and getting in over my head? Is that what you mean, Your Highness?”

Her mouth quirks. “Quite.”

“Then I must agree; we are very much alike.”

“Have you ever had any family, Lapin?”

The flames have died down; John Bon and Swifty are herding the villagers to safety and looking none too happy about it. “No.”

“Neither did I, before Cinnamon. It’s different, having someone love you unconditionally. And when it’s a child, you want to do anything for them.” Lapin thinks of Keradin’s mace swinging towards Liam’s unprotected back and swallows hard. He nods. “But I think maybe I’m a little too indulgent. I know that the House Rocks are wary of my people and my dragon. I know that’s one reason you came with me tonight. I understand it; you don’t have to worry about it--the Rocks are safe with me.”

She gives him time to collect his thoughts; Lapin appreciates it. It seems like it takes him so much longer to draw his words forward now--he’s in constant connection to the powers that be and they draw on his senses, pulling him away from the present at all times, tugging at him for attention always. He feels their power growing at the edges of his mind, the way they funnel into him; it’s distracting to think that something of Lapin might funnel back into them in return. “I think,” he says slowly, “that you and I are a different breed of Candian than the House of Rocks. Forgive me if I am being too forward, Your Majesty.”

Saccharina arches an eyebrow. Lapin continues. “You and I started from nothing. We rose to power, to prestige, to positions in court, by fighting tooth and nail for it. And we know that at any moment, if we are not careful, we can be toppled from those positions, cast back down into the dirt we escaped from once.”

“That’s fair. But what does that have to do with the House of Rocks?”

“The House Rocks, as much as I care for its members, will never understand us. Sir Theobald, perhaps, and Cumulous Rocks may know some strife. But the others--they are royals, born and bred. They cannot know the same world we do, my Queen. They cannot possibly. So they are doing what anyone does without a correct frame of reference to judge from: they are pulling away from you, regrouping, trying to plan for a future which they do not know. I really do think they will _try_ to understand you, and may succeed in some small way, given time.”

“But they can’t understand me _now_ ,” Saccharina concludes. She bites her lip. “And with war on our doorstep there isn’t time enough to give them a chance.”

“No.” Lapin agrees. “And should your family or your people make one wrong step within the sights of the House of Rocks, my Queen, I am afraid they may never try.”

Saccharina turns hard as ice but Lapin was ready for that. “So you _were_ sent to keep an eye on me.”

“I came of my own accord without any orders to do so because I hate the Bulbian church as much as you do. They _are_ the ones who were going to execute me not so long ago, you know. But I also came because your dragon is the personification of the Sweetening Path, Queen Saccharina. As the only magic user to ascend to the Path and return directly connected to it, I thought I might be able to provide assistance. Only if you’d like, of course.”

The fire crackles as it dies. Cinnamon romps in the dark. The marauders laugh and yell at each other as they plunder the wreckage. Lapin’s robes whip against his legs as he waits. Saccharina is a statue against a fiery halo. “You think you can control Cinnamon?”

“I think I can help _you_ control Cinnamon. You’re his mother, after all.”

Glacial, her lips turn up at the corners. “For the record, I think you’re wrong.”

“What about?”

“I think you might not have had a family before. But somewhere along the way, I think you found one.”

Lapin thinks of Liam’s shoulder, boney and cold against his own as they sat together on the parapet. He thinks of pressing his forehead against Preston’s in a dank jail cell. He thinks of Theobald worrying, of Amethar’s hand on his shoulder, of Jet throwing herself at the Sugar Plum Fairy with nothing but her wits and bravery to help her. He thinks of a mace covered in chocolate and the one moment in his life he felt no regret.

“Maybe. If _I_ have become one of them, perhaps there is a place for you too.”

Saccharina’s eyes are overbright. She dashes at them and turns away; her spine is straight, her shoulders back, as she steps into the teleportation ring. Lapin follows a step behind. “I can only hope you’re right.”

It is only after the spell’s effect dies around them, when they step out into the halls of Castle Manylicks, that Lapin decides to take a chance. He’s making these promises so often now--and the part of him that complains is getting smaller and smaller. “Your Majesty.”

Unlike her father, Saccharina Frostwhip does not shrug him off when he lightly touches her arm. “Saccharina.”

“Saccharina,” Lapin amends. He lowers his voice, although they are alone. “We are the same, yes?”

Saccharina catches his eyes; Lapin does not know what is in them, but her face clears a little--the perpetual storm within her abating. “Yes,” she says softly. “Orphans to riches.”

“I don’t know what will happen with Amethar, but you and I understand each other. I would be sorry if you never got the family you wished for, but if you are wavering on your opinion of us...I would hope you know you have a place with me. After all,” he tries to smile although it feels strange in his face, “who would get annoyed at royalty with me otherwise?”

It is one of the only times he has made any of Amethar’s family laugh.

~

Lapin is not necessarily surprised to see Theobald hanging around the next time Saccharina asks him to meet her. She dismisses her guards when Lapin arrives. Rather than waving them both into the room she’s using as her office, Saccharina sweeps out past them and leads the way to the castle grounds. It is an easy, familiar thing to fall into step with his counterpart; Theobald makes space for him without pause. Something nostalgic in him aches. 

Cinnamon waits for them in the courtyard. He unfurls from the ball he’s in to nudge at Saccharina’s shoulder and she laughs, stroking her hand along his snout. He’s grown exponentially; that diet of Bulbian hearts is doing him good. Lapin has never been happier to be excommunicated. 

“Gooey wants to take him to Port Syrup,” Saccharina says, turning back to look at them. Beside him, Theobald straightens his spine. Lapin keeps his eyes on the beast. His magical awareness has grown too, and Lapin can feel it brushing against his own. Cinnamon’s eyes trail over him. He sniffs in Lapin’s direction, snorts, expels sparks, subsides. Lapin lets out a low breath. “I was going to make the decision alone, but the two of you have made it obvious that you’re--open to my presence, at least. You’ve been advisors to the crown before.”

“I’d be happy to advise you, Your Majesty,” Theobald replies. He’s picking his words carefully, slowly. It’s a different tone than the one he uses with Amethar when he’s trying to figure out how to let the King down slowly from a bad plan, or the one he uses with people of the court too highborn to tell to go to hell. Lapin is content to let him think things through for the moment. He’s already laid his cards on the table for Saccharina to see, and he knows that without her, there’s no way to get Candia back again. She’s their last hope. He thinks about leaving sometimes, now and again, but what would be the point? Liam and Preston are here. He has promised to keep Jet and Ruby safe. If Candia falls, Lapin will be killed whether he’s on the battlefield or in hiding anyway. Lapin’s place is here, and Saccharina is their leader. At least she knows what it is like to have nothing before having power.

“Is his only diet flesh, my Liege?”

Saccharina looks startled. “I… I think so, yes. I tried to feed him something else, but Cinnamon only likes Bulbian hearts.”

Lapin frowns, shifts closer. Cinnamon watches his movements with sharp eyes but settles when Saccharina rests a calming hand on his neck. The size of a large horse, Cinnamon dwarfs Lapin when he moves to the dragon’s side. The stench of cinnamon and smoke mixes with Lapin’s general, shifting aura of plant growth and spice and sweetness. Saccharina suppresses a gag; Lapin doesn’t take it personally. There’s always going to be sparks when two beings on the Sweetening Path ( _and the Bulb and the Hungry One_ , a voice in his head reminds Lapin) come into contact.

Lapin gathers his connection to the Sweetening Path close, concentrates, and reaches out. This time when Cinnamon reaches back, brushing his consciousness, Lapin allows it.

_Hungry, hunt, hungry. Rage, anger, hungry, angry, hunt, always hungry, hunt hunt hunt. Hunt, angry, where is prey?_

“Hm.” Lapin pulls away, shaking off the sudden fatigue. Theo has at some point moved to his side while Lapin was busy. When he wavers, the knight supports his elbow without a word. Once upon a time Lapin would have jerked away, sure he was insinuating some weakness. Now, he simply accepts the help and leans his weight on Theo’s shoulder. “It is in Cinnamon’s nature to hunt. I believe this is more pressing for him than the actual consumption of Bulbian meat.”

“Could we figure out another way to satisfy the need to hunt?” Saccharina theorizes, “If you and I worked on some magical food alternative, we could probably find something else that fills the same void.”

“It will take time, but it should be doable.”

“What about Port Syrup in the meantime?”

Saccharina tilts her head at Sir Theobald. “What do you think will happen? I’m worried…”

“Cinnamon seems--a bit prone to getting carried away. If he’s taken to Port Syrup, you’d have to figure out a failsafe to keep civilian casualties low.”

Lapin feels the need to add, “There is also the fact that though you and I hate the Bulbian church for what it has done to us, Queen Saccharina, that doesn’t mean all of its followers are evil. I believe Sir Morris Brie of the Dairy Islands told Amethar that he and Manta Ray Jack would be staying in Port Syrup. Brie is a good man and a knight of the Bulb. He’d die before he lets Cinnamon destroy the chapel there if he didn’t know it is Candia’s decree the church should leave these lands.”

“Are you sure we can trust a follower of the Bulb?”

Lapin shrugs. “Brie wanted to take me with him when he broke Manta Ray Jack out of Bulbian custody. He only left me behind because I argued against it.”

Theo shifts on his feet, obviously uncomfortable. “Forgive the cavalier wording, Your Majesty, but we’ve got to start seeing the grey areas in this assault--and I doubt Cinnamon is going to be able to do that.”

Saccharina waves him off. She stares at her child, pensive; her eyes are far away. Then she sighs, nods, and lets the dragon go. Cinnamon curls his tail around her shins and snorts when she shakes her head sadly at him. Lapin tears his gaze away, feeling as if he may be intruding on a private moment. 

“You’re right. I don’t want to feed into this hunting rage of Cinnamon’s any more than I must anyway. I’ll tell Gooey and Bon John not to take Cinnamon and I’ll give them strict guidelines as to who and what gets targeted in the attack.” 

A new voice makes all three of them jump. “I might be able to help with that.”

Lapin turns in sync with Theo to see Jet Rocks, Flickerish at her hip, grinning at them. She cocks her head and shrugs. Lapin represses the urge to snort; she’s still the same arrogant, sneaky girl who skipped all his lectures. She moves even more quietly than she used to, now that she’s been dead before. He wonders if perhaps she took a little of the Sweetening Path back with her too.

“You can?” Saccharina’s tone is so cautious it makes Lapin wince. 

The Princess’s grin loses some of its edge. “If you want. I’ve always said I belong on the battlefield. Besides, I’ve been out of action for a while and we never got to know each other; maybe this is a start?”

Saccharina smiles, tentatively mirroring Jet.

~

Days later, when they arrive in Port Syrup and Sir Morris Brie greets them at the dock, Lapin lets out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding.

“Cadbury!” A shout comes from behind and Lapin barely has time to brace himself before a hearty slap connects with his back. His knees are not what they used to be, and he stumbles forward, only to be caught by Manta Ray Jack’s arm around his shoulders. “You absolute madman, I heard you’d gotten free! Couldn’t believe it until I saw ya with my own two eyes!”

“Jack,” Lapin greets, ruffled and annoyed. “You haven’t changed.”

“ _You_ have. What’s with the lightshow?”

“When I make a break with the church, I like to do it properly.”

The cheese laughs and strikes his shoulder again before letting him go. Lapin straightens his robes with a huff. His aura ripples around him before Lapin concentrates hard on controlling it; the damn light gives away too much about his mood. He’s a little glad he doesn’t have to deal with the royal court, what with the political handicap the aura gives him. “Go big or go home, eh? Well, good on ya, lad. We’ll need some of that strange voodoo you’ve got once we get to Castle Candy.”

“Indeed.” Lapin steps back and surveys the dock for a moment; Amethar and Brie talk in hushed whispers near the boat they’d arrived on. Brie gestures rather emphatically towards where Lapin can see the tip of Cinnamon’s snout poking between two warehouses which he had landed behind after the Queen’s ship had docked. The beast has grown even more, but restricting its hunting seems to have kept Cinnamon more or less under control. As for the town around them, it doesn’t seem that any more were killed than what was needed; Lapin spies no Bulbians, nor do corpses litter the streets or ash fill the air. Gooey is reporting to Saccharina as the twins, Caramelinda and Liam disembark. Content to observe for now, Lapin slants his gaze to the man at his side. “The attack here--what’s the collateral?” 

Manta Ray Jack’s face becomes drawn, as if he’s holding in a flinch. “The Queen’s forces attacked the church right proper, and the Bulbians of the faith are all gone--in the ground or in piles of ash, you know. Have to say I’m not sorry you all kept that dragon back with you, though, or it might have gotten a lot worse. Sir Morris wanted to protect the chapel, man of the faith and all. I had to talk him out of it; asked him to help herd the townspeople out of the way, make sure everyone else was safe. Distracted him long enough to let Princess Jet take over. Lass was a great help in making sure no loyal Candians got hurt, I’ll tell you that.”

“I thought she might be,” Lapin murmurs. He can’t help the fear that floods his heart to hear what might have happened to Brie if Jack and Jet hadn’t been there. The man had been ready to save Lapin’s life at the cost of his place with the church not so long ago. “Sir Brie will be glad to know I’ve been working with Queen Frostwhip to find an alternative food for Cinnamon.”

“Oh, you don’t say. How’s it working out?”

Lapin flips his paw up between them and murmurs the arcane chant he’s been crafting. A tingle rushes up his spine and down the length of his arm before a large apple, twice the span of his paw, materializes. It glows with the same light that Lapin does and the skin changes constantly, at once yellow, then red, then purple and blue and green. Magic swirls beneath the surface and Lapin snorts to clear the smell of Bulbian vegetation from his nostrils. This spell has taken him long hours in the night to create; Liam has been a great help providing magical seeds Preston collected as a base ingredient for Lapin to work with. He definitely appreciates any help he gets in the endeavor; Queen Frostwhip’s magics are volatile at best but were tempered eventually by Lapin’s influence. It has been a _trying_ experience.

With a glance at him for confirmation, which Lapin gives, Manta Ray Jack plucks the fruit up and examines it. “What would happen if a person ate this?”

“It is made of pure Bulbian magic,” Lapin explains idly. “A person isn’t supposed to ingest something like this apple; Cinnamon is a spirit of the Sweetening Path, so I’m operating on the assumption he needs powerful sustenance. I do believe you might just die.”

Manta Ray Jack is quick to hand the food back. “Ah, well, that makes sense. I’ll leave the magical theorizing up to men who understand that stuff. I was never good at it, I’m afraid.” Jack makes his excuses and hurries off to where Amethar beckons. Lapin smothers a smirk. After all he’s been through these past few weeks, he forgets there are those in Calorum who balk at the thought of powerful magics. 

He waits a few more moments before deliberately wandering closer to Queen Saccharina. Gooey catches his eye over her leader’s shoulder, nods to him, and finishes whatever conversation is left quickly. As Saccharina gathers herself, running her fingers through her mohawk, Lapin sidles closer. “My Queen.”

“ _Oh!_ Lapin, has anyone ever told you it’s creepy how quietly you move?”

“I may have heard that once or twice.”

“You might want to work on it before you give me a heart attack and get accused of regicide. What do you wish to speak about?”

Lapin points discreetly towards the warehouses. Sir Brie has calmed by now, Amethar’s large palm on the back of his neck steadying him, but he and the rest of the residents of Port Syrup are still uneasy. Their mild alarm is palpable in the air, only held back by the presence of the country’s leaders. “Perhaps now would be a good time to feed Cinnamon? Just to make sure nothing _unfortunate_ happens, of course.”

Saccharina’s eyes crinkle at the corners when she smiles. Her excitement makes her look so much like the twins it is jarring. Lapin is so surprised he almost misses her next words. “Do you really think the spell is ready?”

“As ready as it will ever be. Liam helped me make some adjustments to it this morning; we changed the peppermint seed out for a chocolate bark variety and added in a few seeds from plants Liam collected in Calorum. I believe that the extra Vegetanian influence may help supplement Cinnamon’s aggression against Bulbians.”

“I’ll lead the way then!”

The crowd thins dramatically as they approach the beast; Lapin prickles at the thought of the others watching his movements, but nothing can be done about that. As they round the corner, the warehouses give them some cover at least. Cinnamon huffs sparks and smoke out of his nostrils as they approach and Saccharina is quick to hush him. The dragon hooks a claw into her robes, pulling like an insolent child rather than a fearsome Sweetening Path spirit. It almost calls a smile to Lapin’s face. Instead, he hands the magical fruit over to her when she reaches for it.

Cinnamon sniffs the fruit as they hold their breaths. Lapin feels Queen Frostwhip stiffen at his side. Cinnamon dips his head low over her palm. The dragon huffs, pauses, and swallows the apple whole. When he blinks at her, a new light seems to be twinkling in Cinnamon's eye.

“Well now,” Lapin murmurs as Saccharina hooks her arms around her child’s neck and laughs, Cinnamon purring all the while, “isn’t that something.”

~

He stays with Liam on the ship. The House of Rocks breaks off quickly, first Amethar and Caramelinda and later Ruby and Jet joining them. Where he sits with Liam at the prow of the ship, Lapin catches the lingering look Saccharina sends after the twins, but she turns away after their figures disappear. Lapin’s stomach clenches, that familiar old feeling of walking a tightrope coming back to him; he and Theobald and Liam too, they are all stuck between the royals, whether anyone acknowledges it or not. He’d hoped, weeks ago, when he’d been working with Cinnamon and Saccharina had entrusted her forces to Jet, that things would get easier. 

They haven’t gotten easier. Not in a way that really matters, at least. Jet can be talkative, fresh from her time alone, and she seems more receptive to Saccharina than most, but Lapin wonders if that is enough. Amethar and Ruby are still reserved, focused on Jet’s miraculous return. Caramelinda is hard to pin down and that makes Lapin nervous.

Liam cleans his crossbow with slow, practiced movements. Without looking up, he nudges Lapin’s shin with his boot. “You’re thinking really loudly.”

“One of us has to.”

The child makes a disgruntled noise. Lapin lets his lips twitch into a smile. It drops the next moment, when he spies Swifty hanging shiftily around the Captain’s quarters then disappearing inside. Before he goes, the gingerbread man catches Lapin’s eye and sends the rabbit a wink before miming slitting his throat. Disgusting little creature. 

Lapin’s fur stands on end but the alarm spells he’s set on the Rocks sisters--when they weren’t looking, of course, he knows exactly the kind of whining lectures he’d get if he _asked_ before he cast them--don’t go off. So whatever Swifty is up to, it isn’t putting the Princesses in immediate danger. Just one more thing he’ll have to keep his eye on. As if there isn’t enough already.

But he’s got better things to do than sit and worry. Lapin settles back into his seat beside the ranger and folds his hands carefully in his lap. From his sleeve, he pulls the project he’s been working on in secret since his conversation with Liam up on the parapet. 

“Liam.”

“What’s up?” The peppermint boy looks up. His eyes, ever sharp, focus in on what Lapin is holding instantly. “What’s that?”

“It is an egg,” Lapin replies. It sits heavy in the center of his paws, not as large as the one he used the Hungry One’s magics for, nor as bright as the one he crafted from the Bulb. As Lapin holds it up for Liam’s inspection, it floats above his paws a few inches, turning slowly; the shell is multicolored, reminiscent of Lapin’s own robes. The colors shift and swirl lazily as it spins. “Or a seed, if you like. I hope you don’t mind, I used some of the supplies you gave me for Cinnamon’s food to make it.”

“They were for you anyway,” Liam assures, his eyes glued to Lapin’s egg. “What does it do? What’s it for?”

“It is for you.”

“Me?”

“You,” Lapin agrees, feeling strangely indulgent at Liam's surprised tone. Still a child, deep down somewhere. “I’ve been planning it since we last spoke.”

They’ve spoken since the parapet, of course, but Lapin knows Liam will understand. From the crease in his brow, Liam does not disappoint him. “So what does it do?”

“Patience,” Lapin warns, before handing the egg off to Liam. He takes it tenderly, carefully, as if it will shatter with the slightest touch. Lapin knows it will be warm in his hands. “Do not be tempted to find out until you are sure you are ready. But when you need it--when you _want_ it--it is yours to use as you see fit. It is not of the Sweetening Path or the Bulb or the Hungry One, but of all three at once, altogether. It is very powerful, and it will grant you one _Wish._ ”

Liam’s mouth gapes open for a long moment as he stares. Lapin lets him lapse into silence; the child turns and turns his spellwork over in his hands, marveling. No small amount of Lapin’s pride went into that spell, and no small amount of power either. Its crafting was not as rushed as Jet’s resurrection nor his own escape method, and so this egg is more refined, better controlled. It may just be Lapin’s magnum opus. 

When Liam looks up again, Lapin meets his eyes. He wishes he could give this child more; he is too young to have seen such carnage, to have such blood on his hands. This nation has always tried to protect its own but Lapin wonders if they have not gone the wrong way about it, or if they have truly held onto their values. Liam is on the frontlines of a war, soon to have an entire battalion under his watch. Jet died because no adult was around to protect her sister and Ruby seems on the edge of rage because she lost so much too soon. Saccharina was abandoned because they could not keep track of their own young. Lapin sold his soul as a child for a dream he does not believe in anymore because he had no other option. What more will the children of Candia give to their country for their parents, their ancestors, their elders to continue senseless violence and conquest in their names?

“Use it wisely.”

“I will.”

~

“I can’t believe we’re even talking about this!”

“Jet, we must consider every aspect of the situation here,” Caramelinda says, stiff and patient, but only just. “You and your sister always want to be treated as adults. So here is the question: what should we do about Saccharina?”

Ruby shifts on her feet next to Jet, but keeps her mouth closed. Jet swallows the anger, hot and liquid in her mouth, to speak carefully. “I died, Mother. If that doesn’t make me an adult in your eyes, I don’t see how asking me if we should kill my sister will.”

“Your sister?”

“ _Our_ sister,” Jet amends, turning to Ruby. When she takes her hands, they are limp, but Jet clutches tight. She leans closer, blocking their parents out as best she can because this is important--because she spent all that time with Lapin on the Sweetening Path, watching him lie and manipulate a near god. She can see the twitch in Caramelinda’s jaw, the way she is straight as a board and won’t look at Amethar even though he’s dithering about this just as much as Jet and Ruby are. She loves her mother, she truly, truly does--but she also knows her. “Saccharina is our _sister_ , Ruby, whether you like it or not. She’s not a replacement for me, or for you. She is herself. And she’s been begging for a chance at a family. Can’t you see it too?”

Ruby nods. “But she’s so different. She’s not--she’s not one of us.”

“Yet she’s trusted us this far,” Jet whispers back. Their mother snaps out their names behind her. “She let me help at Port Syrup; things could’ve gone a lot worse if she hadn’t put command in my hands. She’s trying, Ruby. Shouldn’t we try too?” Her sister says nothing before Jet rushes ahead again. “She’s different and she came at a bad time, but she’s just a _person_ , Ruby. And she’s been alone for so long--alone like you were when I died. Alone like I was when I was waiting for you on the Path. We can’t leave her out in the cold alone, can we? Don’t you think we should help if we can?”

Ruby hesitates, hesitates--and nods. There are tears on her face. 

~

Theo’s voice in his head as he beds down in one of the rooms on the ship makes Lapin jolt. Thankfully he is alone, with no one around to see how his halo shudders violently or how his aura flickers and grows in his surprise. Liam decided to sleep on the deck of the ship, the silly fool. Lapin is too old for such nonsense. (To be entirely truthful with himself, he only left Liam there because Manta Ray Jack was keeping an eye on him from afar. For this child, a whole village is definitely needed.) 

“Lapin. There’s reason to believe the Queen is in danger.”

“I would have thought that was obvious from us traveling to a warfront.”

“It might be an assassination plot. It sounds like--”

“Yes?”

“Jet and Ruby know already,” Theo _Messages_ , and Lapin rubs his forehead in agitation. He should know better than to dance around the subject with Lapin. “Liam knows too, but we should keep this quiet.”

“Amethar and Caramelinda are seeking violent means to take the throne back, then?”

“Wh--I--”

“Get to the point, Theobald.”

“They may be. Just be ready.”

Lapin’s heart sinks. He has made promises to protect both branches of the same family. “I will be. But do not give up hope for another ending, my friend.”

“You think things can work out for everybody?” Theo asks, and some small amount of amusement leaks into his _Message_. “ _You?_ Mr. ‘we’re all going to die?’”

“To be fair Jet and I did die--or almost, in my case. So I was right about that.”

“Don’t remind me.” Theo cuts off the spell there and Lapin sinks to his bunk with a sigh. He runs his paw over his face, his ears. The chip in one of them is still there; he finds he’s grown used to it. It would be strange to see himself without it, now. His aura ripples around him, turning black and red, swirling with his mood. 

“Calm yourself, Cadbury,” Lapin murmurs to the empty quarters. He wishes he could sleep, but the stuff is even more elusive these days. He may not need it, but unconsciousness would be a kind break from this madness. 

All Lapin is left with is silence until dawn. 

~

The Ravening War was a quieter time for Lapin than most. Oh, he’d defended Candia as best he could while staying undercover, but his phoenix rise through the Bulbian Church kept him under close observation. He hadn’t been on the front lines, hadn’t been able to use what Sweetening Path magic he’d gained from the Fairy to protect his people.

Here, standing at the prow of a ship headed for what was once his home, Lapin watches the Cruller house flags wave from Castle Candy’s ramparts and wonders if he shouldn’t be staying behind after all. His bones chill with the wind coming in off the waves. He’s getting too old for this.

“Lapin.”

Ruby slips up to his side, placing her hands alongside his paws on the railing. She’s gotten very good at sneaking up on people; he should offer her lessons. She’ll be leading her own battalion of rogues today. “Princess. Are you ready?”

“Are _you_?”

He allows a slight hint of approval to flit across his face. “Touché.” 

She smiles, empty at first. Then the corners of her eyes soften up. “I never thanked you for what you did for Jet.”

“You do not need to,” Lapin tells her, sincerity almost burning the words into his tongue. 

“You had no reason not to leave her behind. You went to the trouble of resurrecting hundreds of years of death-rot spells for her.”

She will be a good politician; she knows how to wheedle. Give her lessons, indeed. “You may not have realized this when you were skipping all that schooling to run off like hooligans, Princess, but I took an oath to protect you, the same as Sir Theobald, when I became your tutor. I have been responsible for your well-being all your childhood.”

“We’re women grown now.”

“I never said you weren’t.” Lapin glances at her out of the corner of his eye. Her hair whips in the wind but Ruby is as still and steady as candy stone. “Perhaps you will allow an old man his sentiments, Princess?”

This time it’s Ruby who allows her mouth to twitch into a smile. “You’re a big soft heart under all those lies, Lapin.”

“Heaven forbid. Don’t tell Theobald, whatever you do.”

She laughs and Lapin realizes it is the first time he has heard it in a very long time. What have they all done to these children? Ruby’s barely grown. 

~

Ruby breaks off into the shadows aiming for tents they can see in the distance beyond the town’s buildings, her rogues melting into the darkest shadows as if they were born for it. The monks split to the other side of the port, flanking in a pincer formation. Good. They’ve got the element of surprise with them, and with the trebuchets and Liam’s archers, they may have a chance at long-range warfare before the archers on the castle walls pick them all off.

Liam’s mother stayed behind, but before they left, Spearia Mentha pressed Lapin’s hand between hers and promised him a league of druids at his disposal. (“Not all of us are Candian,” Spearia Mentha told him quietly. She leaned close, her eyes wide and clear. “There are others like you, Lapin. They have left the Bulbian faith and sought refuge with the druidic practices.” Lapin had looked over her shoulder, at the Candians and Vegetanians and Fructerans and even Meatlanders dressed in robes of green, waiting for his lead. He remembered how Myaso had not been willing to meet his eyes at his sentencing, how the Meatlanders had been absent from his execution. He covered her hands with his paw and nodded.) 

Amethar, Jet, and Joren break off towards Commander Grissini’s tents and Lapin turns to address his contingency. They are few: seven druids and Lapin, with less than five monks of the Spinning Star to act as their guards. Magic sparks up Lapin’s spine; his aura grows to a dark, dark violet. “We’ll support from afar as much as possible. We’re too weak to go in head-on. Twist nature to our will; trip them up, swallow them into the very landscape if you can. When you must, move closer, but stay out of sight. Be clever, and brave, and bold.”

~

Amethar darts into action, following Joren’s lead as he slams against Grissini. He cuts into Grissini’s flank with Payment Day, and then, as his opponent sidesteps his backswing, Jet flits in close under Amethar’s arm. Flickerish the Twizzling Blade flashes out, slicing deep into Grissini’s flesh between the plates of his armor. The commander gasps, gaping open-mouthed at the dead Princess come back to life.

“You picked the wrong side, Grissini.” Jet bares her teeth and he flinches back. One hand lifts to cross himself before he falls into a defensive crouch. Jet rolls under Joren’s next swing, and catches Grissini’s blade against her own, locking them together so he cannot down her cousin. “I hope you get death-rot on the Sweetening Path, bitch.”

~

Saccharina descends from the skies, ice flooding her veins, Cinnamon’s fire spread in front of her. The archers of Castle Candy scream as they perish. She remembers a fight, weeks ago, her child curled around her shoulders. How things change.

Cinnamon dips his head, fangs glistening, as a soldier scrambles back, looking for a way out of the tower she and the dragon just crashed into. “ _No, Cinnamon!”_

He roars and snatches the man into his claws, slamming him into the ground. Over the sound of shattering bone, Saccharina pats his neck and croons, “Very good boy. No eating people anymore, dear.”

Their working together, the feeling of flight, the wind in her hair, all of it is almost enough to drown out Swifty’s report from last night. Theo had gripped her hand with both of his and promised his protection to her.

Saccharina wishes she didn’t need it.

~

Liam slides in behind Theo, taking shots at Keradin as they are presented. Rage flows through him, cold and cinnamon-scented. He wants to laugh. He wants to cry. He wishes this had never happened.

A paw grips his shoulder just as he starts forward from his hiding place. “No,” Lapin says. Liam has never heard him sound so cold, so hard, before. He nearly shivers. “Keradin is mine.”

For a second, just a split second, Liam is a boy again. He is a child looking up at Lapin’s deep, bright, otherworldly eyes, at the flint and stone in them. His lips tremble, his fists clench, his palms sweat. The smell coming off Lapin is of sweets and vegetation and cinnamon, a murky, close cloud of conflicting scents. The very air around Lapin is void of color, sucking the life out of the space around the rabbit. The grass under their feet curls and dies swiftly where Lapin touches it.

This mage saved Liam’s life. This mage could end the world. This mage wants the man who brought him low.

Then Liam snaps back, hefts his crossbow, and turns back to stone. Fine. Lapin can have Deeproot. Liam has unfinished business with the Pontifex.

~

Ruby kills the man charging her without a second thought. Sourscratch twangs when the arrow releases, but she’s back in the shadows before any of the nearest soldiers whip around to search for her. Flames consume the horizon; the dragon is at work ahead of her company. Tents are trampled around her, her people massacring soldiers in their sleep. She hears the shouts of the Meatland marauders near the Port and wonders if Cumulous is doing alright.

Jet isn’t with her. She knew she wouldn’t be. It still feels like she’s missing her right arm without her.

Saccharina had looked her in the eye as they got off the boat and Ruby couldn’t tell what was behind her steady gaze. Jet wants them to be a family but Saccharina is--is--not one of them.

Saccharina is helping them win this war.

Ruby throws aside another soldier, chastising herself for getting lost in her thoughts, and ignores the way the sky darkens above her. It must be a storm coming on.

~

Cumulous spins into a roundhouse kick and feels nothing as his shin caves in the side of a man’s skull. His monks fly into the air, high above the heads of Meatlanders who are being tripped by sentient vines, roots wrapping around their ankles and holding them in place. One Meatlander knocks back into a tree to get out of the range of a Candian monk’s fists and the bark of the trunk simply opens up and swallows him whole.

That’s new. He throws another punch and leaps onto the roof of a building, heading across the battlefield towards his cousin’s shouts. As he runs, a great shadow crosses in front of the sun; Cumulous’s path is thrown into semi-darkness, but he does not lose his way.

~

Lapin’s power rushes through him. His chocolate nearly glows, his aura rippling and lashing out in the air around him. His halo spins rapidly, the shards of pointed sugar flipping and twisting into new shapes, cutting, aggressive. 

A mace swings down upon him as he lies on the tiles of a Bulbian Cathedral. A noose slips tight around his neck as he stares out at an audience awaiting his death. His ribs ache, his breath cut short by _painpainpian_ thrumming through him. Peppermint Preston squeals as he is shaken to within an inch of his life. Keradin’s fingers crush his mangled shoulder ruthlessly as he leads Lapin to be sentenced. Manta Ray Jack laughs weakly from the cell next to his. _You’ll lose your mind if you don’t straighten your spine._

Lapin almost doesn’t realize it when he floats right off of the ground. The tips of his paws brush the blades of grass for a moment but then he rises high, and higher, until Theobald is cast into his shadow, until he blots out the sun. His aura expands, dark purple flecked with tiny white lights and Lapin feels that same open space in his mind, the one that scared him when he was hurt and dying in the prison cell, when he thought every breath would be his last. He rises, and he floats, and he becomes something else, something entirely Other.

This time, it is Keradin who must look up at him in terror, bloodied and beaten and so far below him.

“Sir Keradin Deeproot,” Lapin intones, and there are several chords in his voice, striking at a thousand different registers, “tell me: do you repent?”

~

The trebuchets aren’t working. The Order of the Spinning Star is pinned down somewhere behind them. Theobald had to break from his men to catch Uvano before she went for Liam. She lies dead by their combined efforts somewhere behind them. The chariot turned over when Cinnamon touched down to help with Deeproot, but he hopes they can get it upright again; it would be useful if he and Liam could get to the gates faster than the remaining archers could shoot at them.

It’s hard to tell if they are winning. The element of surprise certainly works in their favor, but Jawbreaker almost went down across the field, and Liam has disappeared. Theo can only hope he comes back from wherever he went. As Deeproot prepares another round of battering on Theo’s armor, a shadow crosses them both. 

Theo looks up at his old friend blocking the sunlight across the battlefield and thinks, _oh, yes. We’re winning now._

~

“What’s my full title?” Amethar asks, a terrifying calm washing over him. Calroy’s face is lined in shadow but his eyes gleam where they dart around in his skull.

“Amethar,” Calroy tries placatingly. Cumulous kicks him to his knees.

“What’s my full title?”

~

Liam steps from the shadows behind the Pontifex. Belizabeth Brassica stares out from the ramparts, a book in her hands. “No,” she whispers. Liam slips closer. “How could this happen?”

This woman took his best friend from him. She nearly killed Lapin twice. She put Liam on trial and threw Amethar out of the church. She made their lives hell, and for what? Land and power and greed and corruption. She took his innocence away from him again and again and again. Liam nearly lost everything because of her. Lapin came back and brought Jet and Preston back with him but if the Pontifex had her way they--all of them, all of Candia--would have died terribly. She would destroy his home.

“Bulb above…” 

If not for her, he would still be a child. He would still be a part of a family. He would still be a seed guy. If not for her, he would never have seen war.

The deep cold spikes in his chest as Liam kills the Pontifex. Her body is graceful as it arcs from the castle walls. She disappears about halfway down, falling into the sudden darkness that has eclipsed the light.

~

Keradin falls to his knees. His breath comes in pants, harsh wheezing that barely escapes his breast. He coughs and blood spatters the grass between his knees. 

“You will kill me in the name of heresy.” He strains to get out. His eyes are wide in his face. His mace is covered in blood and gore, and a tiny bit of liquid chocolate. Lapin rolls his shoulder, the same one he couldn’t use for weeks, and lets the sinews knit themselves back together before his adversary’s very eyes. Keradin blanches.

“I tried to tell you, Sir Deeproot, I truly did. The Bulb is _nothing_ . It is fuel. It is worse than uncaring; it is unknowing. You have failed and your faith has failed and your god _does not know you._ ”

Keradin shakes. Lapin tilts his head in a way he’s seen the Sugar Plum Fairy do many times, the angle giving disturbing shadows to Keradin’s frightened face. “As for killing you? Why yes, I will. I like to think I have more mercy than you had for me, Sir Deeproot.” Lapin floats closer, towering over the paladin of a bastard god, and gently takes his face between his paws. “I will not ask you to swear to a faith you do not believe; I will not make you live in a world you cannot love. I am sorry that death is a mercy for you, Keradin, but I will grant it nonetheless.”

Sir Keradin Deeproot raises his hands to the Bulb in supplication. Lapin lets sweet Candian magic choke the paladin before he gets a single prayer past his dying lips.

~

Ruby locks eyes with her half-sister across a battlefield. Cinnamon’s wings flap, sending a great rush of wind through the air that stirs Saccharina’s hair around her face. 

Jet is alive somewhere out there, but in another life, this is the only sister Ruby could have had. The only one. Ruby wonders about that alternate version of herself, if she would have been angry still, violent to the end. Would she have been kind? What would she have said in this moment?

“Did you just want a sister,” Ruby _Messages_ before she can overthink her decision, “or did you really want _me?_ ”

“I have never had family before,” Saccharina replies, soft and cool in Ruby’s mind, “I was desperate for anyone to hold onto. But do not think for one moment that I would _ever_ have regretted _you_ , if I did have you.”

The anger is still hot as it leaks out of Ruby. It gushes from her heart as a torrent. There are still puddles of it inside of her, things she will never be rid of, but the drowning has been avoided. She can breathe again.

~

There is chaos in the fields. The Meatlanders try to run but the monks of the Order of the Spinning Star tear after them, cutting off any chance at a retreat. Vegetanians, Candians and Meatlanders litter the ground all the same, some dead and some still in the process of dying. Without a thought, Lapin’s aura extends to those of his as he walks across the war-torn ground, scuffing his paws on the debris littered underfoot. Three druids slumped over against a fallen chariot gasp and begin patting at smooth skin where there once were wounds. A gumdrop man who’d been impaled lifts the offending spear in his hands, awed, as the gaping tear in his abdomen disappears. Magic rolls out of Lapin in waves, violet and vermillion, marigold and emerald as it sweeps over his comrades. It is more difficult for him to reign it back in as he nears the walls of Castle Candy than it is for him to exert it. 

He has changed. His mind, his body, his powers; all strangers to Lapin. But when Liam appears from the stairs as Lapin passes through the gates and the scratches on the boy’s face close just from his proximity, Lapin cannot feel anything but grateful. Liam holds the Book of Saint Citrina in both hands. He offers it to Lapin but the rabbit shies away, drawing himself up to his full, impressive height.

“Do you think me a fool, Liam? I have too many secrets to ever touch such a thing.”

It does not make a smile come to Liam’s lips as he had hoped, but the ranger’s cheek twitches. “Who do I give it to?”

Who, indeed? Across the courtyard, Cinnamon lands heavily, throwing shockwaves rippling through the ground. Those soldiers near the beast trip and stumble back as Cinnamon extends his neck and Saccharina slides down gracefully. The new warrior Queen of Candia approaches, her brigade hurrying to receive her. Sir Theobald Gumbar falls into step behind her left shoulder and catches Lapin’s gaze. 

Lapin looks away.

Ruby, Jet and Amethar Rocks have arrived as well. They march together through the gates, Jet’s arm hanging limply from her shoulder but a wide grin splitting her face, Amethar’s mouth pressed into a thin line, more serious than anything Lapin has ever seen from the man, and Ruby’s eyes darting from one person to the next. She meets Lapin’s gaze. 

Lapin looks away.

He reaches out with his new magic, which jumps and responds to his wishes like an excited puppy. This casting is not like his casting before his imprisonment when Lapin needed materials and knowledge of incantations, nor is it like the spellcrafting he has done with the seeds since. It is something entirely different; less like spellwork and more like the world shaping to meet his whims. The magics of the Bulb and the Path and the Hungry One all mix within him now and Lapin is hard pressed to tell the difference unless he concentrates. It all comes to him more easily than it should, without thought, with barely any intent. He reaches out, his aura encompassing the once-dead Princess, and when he pulls his power away, Jet’s arm is restored. She rolls her shoulders, cracks her neck, and sends him an appreciative nod.

“Thanks for the help, teach!” Then Jet does a double take, frowning at him. “Uh, you feeling okay, Lapin? You look different.”

“Do I?”

Liam gestures at the air around him. “You’re all kind of...glowy. More than usual, I mean.” He is right, of course. Even discounting his aura,strange multicolored light streams from the scars and cracks in his chocolate shell he’s gained from abuse and war; one runs up over his cheek and is nearly blinding as it mixes with the violet light of his halo. If he were still inclined to sleeping he’d be lamenting right now.

“And your eyes are weird,” Ruby adds helpfully. The tension from post-battle recedes from Lapin’s chest where it has been choking him. Why did he offer his life for these insufferable children again? He scowls at her and, defensive, Ruby turns to the person who has taken up the space just beside her. Lapin’s spine snaps straight. “Saccharina, doesn’t Lapin look weird now?”

The Queen shifts her weight gingerly, surprised written too clearly across her face. She opens her mouth, closes it, then looks at Lapin. “I--I never met him before he came back to life, which was already a little strange, but… Yes, he does look weird now.”

Jet laughs as her twin crosses her arms at Lapin. Saccharina’s face softens at the edges. “See? Even Saccharina thinks you’re weird.”

“Lovely,” Lapin replies drily. “I’m so glad I could bring the family together over how strange my appearance is, now that _I’ve helped save all your lives_.” Theo winces at his bald-faced delivery but Ruby barely flinches. 

“We would’ve gotten there on our own.”

The bravado of these imbeciles. Lapin should’ve left after killing the Fairy when he had the chance. 

Liam steps into the center of the group and offers the Book of Saint Citrina up to Queen Frostwhip. Silent as the grave, she takes it and turns to her father. Amethar’s broad shoulders cast a shadow over her face. “Will you place your hand on the Book, Amethar Rocks?” Her voice contains the craggy cliffs of the Dairy Islands, the sweep of icy wind in the Great Stone Candy Mountains, the syrupy rush of waves in Port Syrup. Amethar lays his hand on the Book. Lapin’s breath catches between his teeth; Liam hooks a steadying hand under his elbow. “Do you want this throne?”

Amethar does not slump. He does not shift. He does not bluster. Amethar looks her in the eye and says, “Yes. I do.”

Lapin’s mind whirls, spinning possibility after possibility, searching for a way to end things peacefully. Just because fighting hasn’t broken out yet does not mean it never will.

“Wait.” Theobald speaks suddenly. Liam’s fingers tighten on Lapin’s arm and he covers them with his paw. The boy relaxes. “Who will be Emperor now?”

Well, the Sugar Plum Fairy be damned. For once the large goon is making sense.

“My mother is dead,” Saccharina admits softly. “You don’t have marriage ties to her any longer.”

“Mom said--” Ruby pauses and, awkward, pats Saccharina’s forearm comfortingly. Saccharina looks understandably confused but says nothing as Ruby clears her throat and starts again. “Mom said that your mother died only days before she married our Pops, which means--”

“The marriage was legitimate,” Lapin finishes. Perhaps this conversation will flow a little smoother if an impartial party mediates. Although, judging by Ruby’s composure and Saccharina’s confused receptiveness, he may not need bother. Still, Lapin is a man of many redundancies. “The paperwork will have all the correct dates and signatures which we will be able to cross-reference with any false claims the remains of Brassica’s people will dream up. I would know; I officiated the wedding.”

“You did?” Jet turns to her father. “How come I never knew that?”

Amethar shakes his head, speechless. Lapin gazes at her down his nose and suppresses a laugh that is only slightly hysterical. “It was one of the stranger events we’ve been involved in, I’d wager. I am quite sure your father simply does not like to remember.”

“So if the marriage is legitimate, then Amethar can still be a part of the Bulbian Church. He was excommunicated under false accusations,” Theo reasons.

Lapin agrees with a hum. “In which case, my Liege, I believe that you have a slightly larger responsibility to Calorum than the Candian throne. You are now the Emperor.”

Amethar is still for a long time. Finally, he reaches out with one large hand and curls his fingers gently around Saccharina’s, bringing them to rest on the cover of Saint Citrina’s Book. He looks into her eyes. “Would you, my daughter,” he asks, voice low with emotion, “like to rule with me from Candia’s throne? I will need your help.”

“You always have it,” Saccharina promises with tears in her eyes.

The ever-present knot in Lapin’s chest unravels. 

~

It is after much deliberation and the moving of the wounded inside the castle and the setting up of makeshift tents and triages and the liberal use of healing spells that Liam swallows the _Wish_ seed. 

_“Liam!”_

Liam gulps again and squeezes his eyes shut in concentration. Lapin bemoans the fact that even after a war, after the Fairy’s machinations and Brassica’s execution attempt, this child will still be the death of him. _“What in the name of all that is holy are you thinking? You can’t just_ **_swallow_ ** _a_ **_spell!_ ** _”_

Candia save him from these blasted fools.

Lapin wracks his brain for the best healing spells, but before he can speak any of them into existence there is a distant rumbling. It spreads through the air, through the very land, and each of the party look up to see the horizon shift. The Great Stone Candy Mountains retreat and lengthen. Port Syrup is twice as far from Castle Candy as it used to be. The waves crash onto a wider shore so loudly Lapin can just pick them up this far out from the beach. Liam opens his eyes and smiles wide.

“What did you do?”

“I made Candia exponentially bigger,” Liam answers Theo cheerfully. He seems calmer now at the end of the battle, almost back to his old self again. Lapin gets the urge to tell him he’s not angry at him. “So that we have more sway in the Concord.”

“Oh, _no,_ ” Amethar mutters under his breath. Lapin feels a headache coming on.

“Well, that’s going to make my new job much more intense.” Saccharina looks a little shell-shocked. 

“Did you wish for anything else?” Lapin eyes the boy shrewdly. He’d be a fool not to, the way _Wish_ is able to grant the user just about anything imaginable. Worded right, the asker could be taken care of for the rest of their life--if they didn’t wish for immortality while they were at it.

Liam shrugs, but his eyes dart from Lapin’s guiltily. Lapin sighs.

~

When it comes out that Liam has brought Keradin Deeproot and Belizabeth Brassica back to life, Lapin washes his hands of the whole affair. It sets his fur on end, sets his chocolate to melting if he thinks about it for too long. His anger and fear and sorrow still run too deep, like the cracks in his shell, like the chunk still missing from his ear. And Lapin loves Liam, he can admit that to himself now, but _this?_

He visits only once and goes no farther than the threshold. Liam holds the book he’d shared with the prisoners the month before in front of his chest like a shield. Lapin’s heart twists. He is still so young--Lapin is not sure if Liam will ever grow older in his eyes. “I thought you’d approve,” Liam says quietly, staring at his shoes. “I thought you would want--you gave our family another chance at life, so I thought that would be good here.”

“I am proud of you, Liam.” Lapin lays a paw on his shoulder. Liam looks up, his eyes wide and shining, and Lapin smiles gently. “You want to show mercy to those who have wronged you, and I cannot do anything but be proud of you for that. There’s nothing wrong with being a seed guy and I know that is what you are trying to do. It is admirable.”

“I sense a ‘but’ coming.”

“ _But_ ,” Lapin stresses, tightening his hold on Liam’s shoulder slightly, “I cannot condone keeping people in prison forever. It is not--not that I regret what you have done, Liam. I want to support you however you need me to. It is just--”

Liam nods and reaches up, folding his fingers around Lapin’s paw. “It’s a you thing. I get it. Maybe--maybe we can make it more like therapy. I think in the beginning I wanted to punish them and this was a way to do it. But you’re right. Life in prison won’t help them learn from mistakes. It was something I did for me, not them; if I want to be a seed guy again, I can’t be vengeful forever.”

It is as if his chest grows and shrinks at the same time. Lapin nearly loses his breath. “I think very soon you will be the wisest of us all, Liam Wilhelmina.”

“I hope not too soon,” Liam jokes, “I wouldn’t want to put you out of a job.”

Lapin lets his paw drop back to his side and snorts. “Do try not to get smart with me, Liam. I said soon, not just yet. There is still much for you to learn.”

“Then I’m glad I’ll be learning from you.”

~

Years pass, as Lapin expected they would. 

Emperor Amethar rules well with Empress Caramelinda at his side and Jet as his Imperial General. Ruby stays behind in Candia to help Queen Saccharina handle Castle Candy, although Lapin hears she often goes out with the Swirler Sisters to put on circus shows. He hopes she is happy; the young of Candia deserve a little happiness after the trials their elders put them through. Theobald takes up the Royal Guards again and picks up the slack when Ruby leaves the castle for a breath of fresh air. He and Lapin often take tea together in the afternoons, but Lapin refuses to hear anything about the development of Theo’s strange relationship with Gooey. There are some things even the rabbit with all the secrets doesn’t need to know. Liam and Primsy Coldbottle have gotten closer in the meantime; he visits their estate in the Dairy Islands occasionally.

Lapin settles the family he has chosen into their roles. He helps clean up after battle and war, heals the injured, counsels the broken. After everything is done, Lapin denies the offer to return to his old quarters in Castle Candy. He simply can’t stand to be in the same rooms near the Bulbian chapel he has presided over for years. It is more than welcome when Frostwhip razes it to the ground instead and moves Lapin into a secluded tower. She fills his rooms with spellbooks and scrolls, old histories of Candia and lands beyond. She takes his paw in both her hands and asks him to tell her if he ever needs anything.

“We’re still the same outsiders,” she says. Lapin agrees quietly and clasps her forearm amiably when she leaves.

He sees to it that his people are protected and, most importantly, that they are free. And then one day, quite suddenly, Lapin looks up and finds himself at loose ends. Everything he has fought for has been completed. He is done.

Lapin is done.

He has not been free for a long, long time. He’s not sure he’ll ever get used to it. But he has been filled with questions ever since he was a child; his curiosity, his greed for knowledge, has always been his defining trait. Lapin still has many, many questions about the powers he now wields.

So Lapin methodically packs his magical research, his weaponry, his most precious items. He takes the seeds Liam always presses upon him. He takes the amulet that Saccharina presented him on the fourth anniversary of his and Jet’s return from death, which allows him to scry on his loved ones by announcing their names in an incantation. He takes the seal of the Royal Guard to the House of Rocks Theo gave him and the daggers the Rocks twins have left in his study over the years. He takes the history of the Rocks sisters Amethar donated to his library, although Lapin knows more about the family than a stuffy historian could ever layout in a text. 

He pens a note and leaves it on his desk, although it seems rather trite after everything. 

Lapin disappears.

Saccharina comes for advice in the early morning hours, but when he does not answer she assumes, in his age and with his insomnia, Lapin is finally getting some rest. Ruby knocks incessantly after a late breakfast has been served and his absence is noted. Finally, around noon, she has Theo bust the door in with his shoulder. Lapin is not there.

Lapin is gone. They read his note, circulate it to Queen Frostwhip and the Emperor and Empress and the Imperial General. They leave it with Liam in the end; he clutches it in his fists and feels the old heat rise in his throat, the outrage compelling him to tear Candia apart to find the warlock who abandoned him. He pushes the anger away and reads the note again.

_My friends,_

_We have done well for Candia. I have not always been the best judge of character, but I will tell you now, with the barrier of the written word, that I have come to consider you some of the best Candia--no, all of Calorum--has to offer. It has been an honor to know you. There was a time I did not know if I could live with you. There was a time I did not think I could live without you. I am glad I never had to find out._

_But I am tired now my work is done._

_I have many questions to ask and few answers left to give. But if you will indulge an old man in his sentimentality, heed these last two pieces of advice, shamelessly stolen from others who may have been wiser than I: You will lose your mind if you don’t straighten your spine. You must be clever, and bold, and brave._

_Candia needs you. Calorum needs you. And though I wish for us to remain together, you do not need me. Not anymore. What you need is to continue your lives, your work, to bring the honor I have of knowing you to those who need you now. I shall leave you and make space for others in your lives; I have never been interested in taking up room and time where I am not necessary. I will travel, and ask my questions, and get my answers. Perhaps one day I will be able to share them with you, if you would allow me one last lecture._

_But if there should ever be reason to call on me for help, call you shall, and I shall answer. That is a promise, and one I do not make lightly._

_We will meet again. But until we do I will always be your,_

_Lapin Cadbury, Defier of the Bulb, Exploiter of the Hunger One, Walker of the Sweetening Path, Protector of the House of Rocks, and Proud Candian._

“After everything.” Liam whispers. Primsy clasps her hands around his curled fists. The parchment crinkles, folding until all he can see through blurry vision are the words ‘ _your, Lapin Cadbury._ ’ “After it all, he only sticks around for--he just leaves? Just like that?”

“He’s been staying at Castle Candy for several years now, Liam.” Primsy ducks her head to see his face, but Liam turns away. He isn’t comfortable with the wetness of his cheeks yet. It feels too real. “It has been over a decade since you retook Candia and Amethar Rocks ascended to the Emperor’s throne. Lapin Cadbury has done nothing but help restore your country, and he is old now, dear. Does he, too, not deserve a break? To see the world? The Bulb knows he was not able to travel in his youth.”

“I thought he would _stay_. I wanted him to stay.”

“He did, Liam. For as long as we needed him. But we’ve all moved on. Don’t begrudge him that he did too.” As he dashes the tears away and sniffles, Primsy pulls out a new handkerchief and offers it up. Embroidered on the milk-silk is the silhouette of a rabbit in profile, a halo of violet sugar glass circling his long ears. “I made this for him, for his birthday this year. He’d want you to have it.”

As she passes the cloth to him, Peppermint Preston rears back and places his forelegs on Liam’s shins, startling a low laugh out of his owner. The pig is too large to be picked up now, but Liam pushes his hair out of his eyes just like always. Preston needs a haircut. “I’m gonna miss him.”

“You will meet again.”

~

They meet again after long, long years. Liam lets his last breath pass his trembling lips. His bones ache, his muscles ache, he aches. He dies in his garden, with his wife holding him, surrounded by growth and life and the seeds he loved. When he is buried, Liam’s plot is set next to his beloved pet’s, with an empty plot on his other side waiting for Primsy whenever she should feel the urge to follow along. Liam dies a seed guy.

The hands that take his wrap around his fingers gently but firmly and guide him surely on into the afterlife. The Sweetening Path is not as foggy as Jet described it; he wishes he could go back and ask, but his cousins survive him. He will have to wait until they join him here.

As Liam stands, he is youthful again, not as he was as a teen, but broad shouldered and healthy and hale as he was in his early thirties. It is a kindness from the Path to let him leave behind the frailty of old age. He grins when he hears a telltale _oink_ from the vicinity of his boots and looks down at the much smaller face of Peppermint Preston. The pig butts his head against his owner and circles him twice before bounding over to the figure helping Liam gain his balance.

The hands holding his are not really hands at all, Liam realizes when he is done gazing at the brightness and color and healthy vegetation and sweet air of the Sweetening Path, so much as they are paws.

“Hello, Liam.” Lapin says. He is much changed from the last time he held Liam’s hands. There are bright pinpricks of light in the depths of his dark eyes. His halo has grown and shifts as it always has, but seems even sharper. The cracks Lapin sports look less like damage inflicted on his shell now, but more like cracks between worlds, like possibilities Liam is not sure he wants to dig his fingers into and pry open to see inside. Lapin’s aura wraps around him, bright and vital, and Liam feels at home. “It has been a long time.”

“Lapin.” Liam replies warmly, the only way he can. He wraps his arms around the rabbit and a paw gently holds him back. “You’re here.”

“I am.”

“I died, and you’re here. You’re dead for real this time, then?”

“Not quite.” Lapin smiles when Liam pulls away, puzzled. He gestures out over the fields of rolling grain, the copses of trees and the beach, waves crashing in the background. There is a gazebo in the middle distance, and Liam gasps as he recognizes the broad shoulders of the Former King Amethar there, the slender form of Queen Caramelinda, his own mother’s leafy mantle and his father’s strong arms. More figures circle the building and Liam knows his family has come to welcome him. Lapin waits by his side. “I am the keeper of the Sweetening Path now, Liam. Or what it has become. There is no hoarding of magics or souls or memories now. There is only the in-between of the Path, and the cycle of the Bulb and the Hungry One that lies beyond. You may take all the time you want here with your loved ones and wait for those you cannot part without. And then, when you are ready, you may move on. It is as simple as walking down the Path.”

“You’ve become a spirit of the Sweetening Path. _The_ Spirit of the Sweetening Path.” 

“I told you I have changed; I change even still. The magic I have used I have become, Liam. To be Lapin Cadbury is to be a spirit. But I am not confined to one faith, nor do I keep the afterlife of only one. It is the Sweetening Path for Candians. It is the Great Garden for Vegetanians, the Free Range for Meatlanders.” The rabbit pauses, those otherworldly eyes just too kind to be truly unsettling. “But I do prefer the Sweetening Path.”

“Why have you done all of this? Why not just move on yourself? I know you hated this place when the Fairy trapped you here.” 

Lapin winks. “I told you in my letter, didn’t I? I am the Protector of the House of Rocks.”

_fin._

__


End file.
